Lyric Theatre
218 Seneca Street,
Oil City,
PA
16301
218 Seneca Street,
Oil City,
PA
16301
1 person
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Lyric Theatre (Official)
Additional Info
Functions: Performing Arts
Previous Names: Orpheum Theatre, Princess Theatre, Cameo Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Lyric Theatre is located along Seneca Street in Oil City, PA in between the Transit Building Annex and the IOOF building. It opened by 1921. For about 40 years its lobby served as the sales floor for Ray L. Way, a local haberdashery which closed in the early-2000’s.
The Oil City Community Playhouse has been renovating it for the past several years with plans to use the space for live performances. Local folklore has it that Charlie Chaplin did some of his first American performances there.
Contributed by
Von Winger
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
This is the caption to a photo in the Oil City Derrick on 10/10/74:
Ray L. Way and son, Richard L. Way, peer at a remnant of the old Lyric Theater which once occupied the site where a clothing store is now located. The elaborate design which Ray is touching borders the old stage which now serves as a storage and tailoring area in back of the sales section. The store moved into the former Lyric Theater building in 1955. Prior to the Lyric, this site was occupied by the Cameo Theater, before that the Princess Theater and before that the Orpheum Theater. Actually, the Lyric started housing audiences in 1917 at 106-108 Seneca St., moving to 216 Seneca St. in 1927.
Late 1940’s 12 Cents Admission, Oater’s and Serial’s all day all evening, and you could stay and watch them over and over !
Per kencmcintyre’s comment above, this page is missing the aka’s Princess Theatre and Cameo Theatre. We don’t yet have a page for the first Lyric Theatre, at 106-108 Seneca Street. (I’ve found out that the first Lyric was in operation prior to March, 1916, when it was reported to have reopened following a major renovation.) According to the current Lyric web site, this house opened as the Orpheum in 1906.
Harris Amusements owned the theater in 1935.
This theater is currently operating as a performing arts theater.
Odd little one story building with a boxy stage tower at the rear. Very nondescript facade of black metal paneling, which likely dates to the 1955 retail conversion. The stage portion is much older. Unfortunately, (this seems to happen frequently in small cities), the Sanborn map of 1913 is the last until a 1950 update, which is rather sloppily edited.
The 1913 map shows the Princess here, but that building was mostly wood, and not nearly as deep. It’s not clear when exactly the Princess was replaced by/remodeled into the Lyric, but the Princess is still listed in the 1914-15 AMPD. Oddly, the 1950 map does not show the stage tower, but it must have been there.
The website’s history is wrong. The Orpheum was to the north, and was replaced by the Odd Fellows building sometime after 1914-15. The Orpheum does not appear on the August 1906 map, so it likely could not have opened by the end of that year.
All of the AKAs are spurious. The Princess was much smaller and was demolished to build the Lyric, the Orpheum was further north. The Cameo is listed in the 1926 and 1927 Yearbooks separately from the Lyric.