Academy of Music

lackey on July 15, 2012 at 3:56 pm

The Academy of Music was in the 400 block of west Salem Ave about half way between 4th street and 5th street. Lots of stage productions there and often starring actors of note. I have a bill where Boris Karloff was staring in a play. The inside of the theater was very nice but had more of an auditorium feel than a theater to me. Two theaters in Roanoke, Va were larger. The American (1928-1971)(2,000 seats) and The Roanoke (1911-1961) (about 1400 seats including a second balcony for African Americans) which was next door to The American on Kirk Ave but it’s entrance was around the corner on Campbell Ave except the upper balcony had an entrance with small box office and marquee on Kirk Ave for African American patrons. I know that sounds nuts today but that was the way it was then and I knew back then as a teenager working there that it was not right and was glad when my black friends could walk right in the main entrance starting about 1963 or 64.

The Roanoke for it’s first years was on the Keith circuit which fed a steady diet of stage presentations. The Roanoke’s stage was wider than The Academy of Music but not as deep. Probably about 25 to 30 feet deep with dressing rooms up stairs on the side of the stage but high enough for wing space on the stage and additional dressing rooms under the stage.