The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts > Vaudeville Nation

Controlling the Circuits

Program cover, Orpheum
Theater, Salt Lake City,
week of December 5, 1905,
featuring illustrations of
Orpheum circuit theaters
across the country

E. F. Albee and B. F. Keith, theater manager partners since 1885, recognized that by amassing theaters in many cities, they could target of women and family audiences with vaudeville and an occasional operetta.  They maintained control of quality by managing the national circuits from their New York offices.  Rival chains were run by Proctor and Martin Beck (the West Coast's Orpheum circuit) eventually merged into Keith-Albee.  Eventually, it owned or provided circuit shows to most of the major urban areas.  The Palace Theater, 1913 - , was the mecca of the Keith-Albee circuit.  The last major vaudeville house built by the circuit was the Brooklyn Albee Theater, 1925.

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