Shea's Performing Arts Center facts for kids
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| Former names | Shea's Buffalo (1926-48; 1976-93) Loew's Buffalo Theater (1948-75) |
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| Address | 646 Main St Buffalo, NY 14202-1906 |
| Owner | City of Buffalo |
| Operator | Shea's O'Connell Preservation Guild Ltd. |
| Capacity | 3,019 |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | January 15, 1925 |
| Opened | January 16, 1926 |
| Closed | June 30, 1975 |
| Reopened | February 25, 1976 |
| Construction cost | $1.8 million ($30.4 million in 2022 dollars ) |
| Architect | Rapp Brothers |
| Structural engineer | McClintic-Marshall |
| General contractor | John Gill & Sons |
| Main contractors | Bass Construction |
| Website | |
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Shea's Buffalo Theatre
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| NRHP reference No. | 75001186 |
| Added to NRHP | May 6, 1975 |
Shea's Performing Arts Center is a famous theater in Buffalo, New York. It's a great place to see exciting Broadway musicals and other special events. When it first opened in 1926, it was called Shea's Buffalo and showed silent movies. It took a whole year to build this amazing theater! Shea's is special because it still has one of the few original theater organs in the U.S. that works in the very theater it was made for.
Contents
Discovering Shea's History
Shea's Buffalo was the most important theater in a chain of theaters. It was designed by famous architects named Rapp and Rapp from Chicago. The theater looks like fancy opera houses and palaces from Europe built in the 1600s and 1700s. It mixes Spanish and French styles.
How Was Shea's Built?
When Shea's first opened, it had almost 4,000 seats. Later, some seats were removed to make more room and comfort for people. Now, Shea's has 3,019 seats. A world-famous artist named Louis Comfort Tiffany designed the inside of the theater. Most of his designs are still there today. Many of the beautiful items inside, like huge crystal chandeliers from Czechoslovakia, came from a store called Marshall Field's in Chicago. The seating area inside was very big, covering more than one acre.
The Cost of Building Shea's
Building and decorating the theater in 1926 cost over $1.9 million. This was a lot of money back then! For example, a new house might cost $3,000, and a new Model A Ford car was about $1,000. The theater opened on January 16, 1926. The first movie shown was King of Main Street, starring Adolphe Menjou.
Changes in Ownership
When Michael Shea retired in 1930, V. R. McFaul took over his theaters. McFaul managed many Shea's Theaters around Buffalo until he passed away in 1955. Then, Loew's Theatres took over the chain in 1948.
Saving the Theater
In the 1960s and 1970s, downtown Buffalo was not doing well, and the theater started to show its age. At that time, Loew's Corporation ran it. The theater's owner, Leon Lawrence Sidell, was not paying his taxes.
A small group of people, called the "Friends of the Buffalo" theater, started to help. They began working on the organ and fixing other things. Some of them even lived in the theater for a while to help with repairs.
When it looked like the city would take over the theater because of unpaid taxes, Loew's planned to remove everything inside, like the chandeliers and furniture. But the "Friends" group made a list of every item. A judge then stopped Loew's from taking anything. The judge said these items were a key part of the theater. This was a big win for the "Friends" and the city!
Reopening and Success
The theater then came under the care of Comptroller George O'Connell. With his help and the "Friends" group, the theater's power stayed on, and repairs began. The "Friends of the Buffalo" were allowed to run the building. They started a huge restoration project with money from grants and began hosting performances in the late 1970s.
A theater manager named Robert B. D'Angelo became the CEO. He brought many big Broadway shows to Shea's, like A Chorus Line, Chicago, Annie, and Les Misérables. This helped Buffalo become an important stop for Broadway tours again.
Shea's had a grand reopening in the late 1970s with a sold-out show. Famous performers Cab Calloway and George Burns were there. Calloway had performed at the theater when it first opened in 1926, and Burns had performed there in the late 1940s.
Today, Shea's is a very successful performance center. It has made its stage bigger to fit even larger touring shows. It also hosts local events, like the 43North business competition.
Famous Performers at Shea's
Many famous artists have performed at Shea's over the years:
- In 1939, The Ink Spots performed.
- Frank Sinatra sang for six nights in 1941.
- Ella Fitzgerald performed in 1945.
- Later, bands like Foreigner (1977), Toronto (1980), Blue Öyster Cult (1984), and INXS (1985) played there.
- Local favorites like 10,000 Maniacs (1988), Eddie Money (1988), and the Goo Goo Dolls (1995, 1999, 2018) have also performed.
- Other stars include Liza Minnelli (1992), Peter, Paul and Mary (1993), Barenaked Ladies (1994), Our Lady Peace (1998), and Gordon Lightfoot (2008).
- Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber visited in 2009.
- Hip-hop artists like Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, Kurtis Blow, Salt N Pepa (2011), and Public Enemy (2012) have performed.
- Comedians Jerry Seinfeld (2013), Bill Maher (2015), Impractical Jokers (2018), Chris Rock (2022), and Adam Sandler (2023) have made audiences laugh.
- Singers like Mary J. Blige (2015) and Mariah Carey (2019) have graced the stage.
- The band Steely Dan performed in 2017.
The Mighty Wurlitzer Organ
Shea's theater has a special "Mighty Wurlitzer" organ. It was custom-made by the Wurlitzer Company. This organ was one of only five in the world that had special sound adjustments done right at the theater after it was installed. The Wurlitzer factory, which was nearby, even used this organ to show customers what their large organs sounded like in a theater.
Organ's Journey and Restoration
The organ was first built to play music for silent films. Like many organs of its kind, it fell into disrepair and was rarely heard in the 1940s and 1950s. The American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS) helped get it working again for some concerts. Sadly, around that time, some valuable brass trumpets, which were special pipes for the organ, were stolen.
The organ then stayed mostly silent again until the late 1970s. The "Friends of the Buffalo" group fixed it up for the theater's grand reopening.
In the late 1970s, the Wurlitzer organ had a huge restoration. Money from different arts groups helped pay for it. They replaced the entire system that controlled the organ. They also fixed the windchests, replaced missing pipes, redid the wiring, and worked on the organ's console (where the organist plays).
Organ Performances Today
The newly fixed organ was first shown to the public at a sold-out concert by famous theater organist Lyn Larsen. Since then, it has been used for solo concerts, to play music for silent films, and as background music before and after events at the theater.
In 2006, to celebrate the theater's 80th birthday, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra played a concert there. Conductor JoAnn Falletta led the orchestra, and Anthony Newman played the organ. The concert included famous pieces like Camille Saint-Saëns' "Organ" Symphony and music from The Phantom of the Opera.
Other Theaters to Explore
- Ghostlight Theatre
- North Park Theatre
- Riviera Theatre
