The Hippodrome Theatre 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...

 theater in Baltimore, Maryland. Built in 1914 for impresarios Pierce and Scheck, the 2300-seat theater was the foremost vaudeville house in Baltimore, as well as a movie theater. The Hippodrome was designed by Thomas White Lamb

Thomas W. Lamb

Thomas White Lamb was an American architect, born in Scotland. He is noted as one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas in the 20th century.-Career:...

, one of the foremost theater architects of his time. Lamb gave the theater an unusually strong presence on Eutaw Street through the use of brick and terra cotta

Terra cotta

Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...

 on a massive façade. The Hippodrome has been recently renovated for use as a performing arts theater, and is part of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center.

The site had previously been occupied by the Eutaw House Hotel, built in 1835. The new theater had an original capacity of 3000 seats and boasted a Moller organ

M. P. Moller

Mathias Peter Møller was a prolific Danish organ builder. He was a native of the Danish island of Bornholm. He founded the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Company in Greencastle, Pennsylvania in 1875...

, as well as a house orchestra that survived into the 1950s. The Hippodrome was operated by the Loew's chain from 1917 to 1924, then by Keith's. During the 1930s the Hippodrome featured such performers as Jack Benny

Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

, Milton Berle

Milton Berle

Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...

, Bob Hope

Bob Hope

Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

, MercyMe

MercyMe

MercyMe is an American Christian rock band founded in Greenville, Texas. The band consists of vocalist Bart Millard, keyboardist James Bryson, percussionist Robby Shaffer, bassist Nathan Cochran and guitarists Michael Scheuchzer and Barry Graul....

, Martha Raye

Martha Raye

Martha Raye was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television....

, Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

, Red Skelton

Red Skelton

Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...

, the Andrews Sisters, Morey Amsterdam

Morey Amsterdam

Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.-Early life:...

 and Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

. Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

 first performed with the Tommy Dorsey

Tommy Dorsey

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

 Orchestra at the Hippodrome. Live performances ceased in 1959, but movies remained strong through the 1960s. The Hippodrome finally closed in 1990 as the last movie theater in downtown Baltimore.

The most recent renovation combined three contiguous existing buildings and a new structure: the Western National Bank Building (1887), the Eutaw Savings Bank Building (1888) and the Hippodrome into a major performing arts complex, designed by Hardy Holtzman Pfeiffer Associates.

External links

• The Hippodrome, Baltimore City, including photo in 1998, at Maryland Historical Trust
• The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center