Orpheum Theatre

The Orpheum Theater is located at 409 South 16th Street in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. The Orpheum hosts programs best served by a more theatrical setting, including the Omaha Performing Arts Broadway Season, presented with Broadway Across America, and Opera Omaha's season. The theatre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.HistoryThe current site of the Omaha Orpheum Theatre was previously home to the Creighton Theater. John A. McShane organized a stock company to build the original theater in 1895. The architects for the original theater were Fisher & Lawrie and the general contractors were Rocheford & Gould. Paxton and Vierling installed the iron curtain that weighed 11 tons. The theater was named after John A. Creighton, a local philanthropist, and a large portrait of Count Creighton decorated the proscenium arch. The Creighton Theater was eventually added to the Orpheum Circuit, which by 1900 had expanded to nine western cities: Omaha, Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento. The reference to Creighton was eventually dropped from the theater's name.By 1926 a new, larger theater was in the works. The current 2,600-seat proscenium theater was built in 1927 on the same site as the original Creighton Theater, but with its entrance situated on 16th Street.