For the theater in London see Folly Theatre

Folly Theatre

The Folly Theatre was a London theatre of the late 19th century, in William IV Street, near Charing Cross, in the City of Westminster. It was converted from the house of a religious order, and became a small theatre, with a capacity of 900 seated and standing. The theatre specialised in presenting...

The Standard Theatre, now known as the Folly Theater and also known as the Century Theater and Shubert's Missouri, is a former vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 hall in downtown Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

. Built in 1900, it was designed by Kansas City architect Louis S. Curtiss

Louis Curtiss

Louis Singleton Curtiss, was a Canadian-born American architect. Notable as a pioneer of the curtain wall design, he was once described as "the Frank Lloyd Wright of Kansas City", Missouri. In his career, he designed more than 200 buildings, though not all were realized...

. The theater was associated with the adjoining Edward Hotel (later the Hotel Missouri), demolished in 1965, by the same architect.

History

The Standard Theatre opened with 2400 seats on September 23, 1900, featuring burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

 and vaudeville. It was built by Colonel Edward Butler of St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 at a cost of $250,000 for his son to present shows on the Empire vaudeville circuit. A 1901 fire at the nearby Coates Opera House caused opera and comic opera performances to be moved to the Standard, featuring such performers as Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

, Richard Mansfield

Richard Mansfield

Richard Mansfield was an English actor-manager best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas and for his portrayal of the dual title roles in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 and Maude Adams

Maude Adams

Maude Ewing Kiskadden , known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan. Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more...

.. The theater's name changed to the "Century" in 1902. The Century featured acts from the Empire burlesque circuit, including Al Jolson

Al Jolson

Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....

, Fannie Brice and Eddie Foy

Eddie Foy

Eddie Foy, Sr. , was an actor, comedian, dancer and vaudevillian.-Early years:...

. In addition to theater acts, the Century featured prizefighting and wrestling, with appearances by Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson (boxer)

John Arthur Johnson , nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” was an American boxer. At the height of the Jim Crow era, Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion...

 and Jack Dempsey

Jack Dempsey

William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey's aggressive style and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Many of his fights set financial and attendance records, including the first...

. Johnson stayed in the manager's apartment, as hotels refused to rent him a room.

The Shubert brothers bought the Century in 1923 and renamed it "Shubert's Missouri" after extensive renovations by Shubert architect Herbert J. Krapp

Herbert J. Krapp

Herbert J. Krapp was a theatre architect and designer in the early part of the twentieth century.Krapp was an apprentice with the Herts & Tallant firm, where he was involved with designing the plans for the Lyceum, Shubert, Booth, New Amsterdam and Longacre Theatres, among others. He departed the...

. The Shuberts booked dramatic productions including Shakespeare and O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

 plays. The Marx Brothers

Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...

 performed I'll Say She Is for three weeks in 1923-24, the long run convincing the Shuberts to continue operating the theater. After 1928 business fell off and the theater was used for touring shows on an intermittent basis until it closed in 1932. After a tax sale it eventually reopened in 1941 as "The Folly", featuring striptease

Striptease

A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...

. Performers included Gypsy Rose Lee

Gypsy Rose Lee

Gypsy Rose Lee was an American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author, and playwright whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy.-Early life:...

 and Tempest Storm

Tempest Storm

Tempest Storm is the stage name of an American stripper, burlesque star, and motion picture actress. Along with Lili St. Cyr and Blaze Starr, she was one of the best known burlesque performers of the 1950s and 1960s. She is regarded as having one of the longest careers as a burlesque performer,...

, and before the Folly closed in January 1974, Chesty Gabor

Chesty Morgan

Chesty Morgan is a Polish-born Jewish American exotic dancer who starred in two films directed by Doris Wishman.-Biography:An orphan, Morgan was sent from Poland to live in Ein Gev, a kibbutz in the British Mandate of Palestine, at the outbreak of World War II.Morgan married an American and moved...

. The theater began showing adult moves in 1969, apparently prompting an unknown person to plant a dynamite stick in a drainpipe on December 29, 1969. By 1974 the owner was considering demolishing the theater for a parking lot.

Following the Folly's listing on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1974, a "Strip the Folly" fundraiser was held featuring Sally Rand

Sally Rand

Sally Rand was a burlesque dancer and actress, most noted for her ostrich feather fan dance and balloon bubble dance. She also performed under the name Billie Beck.-Early life and career:...

, who had performed at the Folly. After seven years a full renovation was completed in 1981, including the construction of an annex on the site of the former Edward Hotel.

Description

The Neo-Palladian facade uses Carthage limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 and red pressed brick, with an adapted Palladian window centered in the facade. Rather than a fully glazed infill within the limestone Palladian framework, the lower portion of the unit uses three arched windows with an entablature over the center window dividing it from the lunette under the principal arch. The street level is heavily rusticated limestone with three arched entrances and wrapping a short way around the right (east) side to form an additional arch. The east wall contains small limestone-framed ventilation openings near the top, as well as emergency exits and a 19 feet (5.8 m) high opening for stage scenery. The building is 125 feet (38.1 m) deep, 70 feet (21.3 m) wide and 65 feet (19.8 m) high.

The interior structure mixes steel and wood construction. There is a basement under the stage, housing mechanical systems and backstage service spaces. The main floor is entered through a lobby and box office area. The house contains three sections of seats facing a highly decorated proscenium arch. The house is flanked by balcony-level boxes, with the main balcony to the rear. The stage is provided with a fly loft, fly balconies, a scenery workshop and ten dressing rooms. Interior decoration is predominantly red and gold.

The exterior is largely unaltered, but the interior has been substantially renovated. In 1923 the lobby was reduced in size, moving the box office and eliminating a secondary box office for the balcony, while the balcony itself and a gallery level were replaced by a single larger balcony, reducing seating capacity

Seating capacity

Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...

. Plasterwork in the upper levels was replaced at this time, and a manager's apartment was removed.

Current seating capacity

Seating capacity

Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...

 is 1078 seats.

External links

• Folly Theater website
• Standard Theatre, 300 West Twelfth Street, Kansas City, Jackson County, MO: 12 photos, 2 data pages, 1 photo caption page, at Historic American Building Survey