Orphium Theater

The Orpheum Circuit along with the B.F. Keith Circuit were two of the two most well-known vaudeville circuits in their era. Their large venues located throughout North America housed some of the most well-known acts in the history of the medium. The Ohio-based Orphium Theatre Circuit of vaudeville is at the other end of the spectrum. The little-remembered Orphium Circuit was incorporated in 1907 to provide family-centric live vaudeville marketed to a female audience. Its flagship theatre appears to have been the Orphium Theatre in Lorrain opening in 1905.

The Sidney-based Henne family – George, actress Anna, and Teresa were three-fifths of the circuit’s founders. And Lena Timeus of nearby Anna, Ohio, was another founder. Within a year of is incorporation in 1907, the circuit was fifty percent female owned, rare in theatrical operations. It may also explain its marketing approach targeting female and family audiences. The Orphium Circuit linked mostly five-year deals with theatres in Ohio including the existing Lorrain Theatre as well as Ohio locations in Chillicothe, Bucyrus, Alliance, Xenia, Lima, Portsmouth and Sidney along with two Indiana venues located in Plymouth and Columbus.

Pinpointing the end of the Orphium Circuit is challenging but it appears that booking of talent occurred at an office in Toledo which may have ceased there late in 1909 and the entire operation had folded by 1912. Operating a regional vaudeville circuit with small venues became increasingly challenging with the increased interest, ease, and profitability of film. It appears that the Orphium was trying to either make or book synchronized novelty films at the end of its operation with little success.

The dates of the Sidney, Ohio, location of the Orphium is much easier to pin down. The new venue opened in the existing Woodward Building on December 10, 1906. Its opening advertisement stated that it would stage, “Nothing but the best Polite Vaudeville catering to ladies and children". All tickets were a dime. Moveoral and Cameragraph films were part of the proceedings between acts. On nights without live acts, admission for films was a nickel. The four-story H.G. Woodward Building had been constructed and opened in 1899 and contained an elevator. It was part of a group of multi-level buildings on the city’s West Side of the Square located across from its courthouse.

Operating a 275-seat live venue proved challenging. By 1908, the Orphium Circuit’s owners were trying to sell the Sidney location. On June 19, 1909, the Orphium Theatre closed with movies including the short, “Indians and Cowboys.” The theatre’s operations were moved to the Wilson Building in a conversion of Sidney’s first auto garage. That became the Lyric Theatre - a larger venue with has its owns Cinema Treasure page. The Orphium locations around the region continued to operate but drifted away from the Orphium’s original concept of live vaudeville for female audiences. The last Orphium effort to remain viable that is mentioned in the trade press is an attempt to either make or produce short, synchronized sound novelty films – without success. There is little information other than a mention.

The Orphium’s vertical sign was removed from the Woodward Building in July of 1909 and the space converted to a retail shop for Jacobs Brothers of Cincinnati. The building was repurposed one more time as the new home of Thedieck’s department store. Its original location had burned down on March 19, 1914 when safecrackers’ use of explosives ended up destroying four downtown buildings in the city’s worst ever blaze. Theidieck’s took on the entire ground floor of the Woodward building and former Orphium Theatre location later that year.

On December 18, 1927, a major fire destroyed once again destroyed Theidieck’s department store and the entire Woodward building came down except for a bit of the first two floors’ walls. During a January 1928 windstorm, the wrecking company’s job was eased when those blew down ending the building’s run. The space where the fire transpired is largely unfilled other than a dilutive drive-through banking building that has no architectural relationship to the other remaining buildings of the block.

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