Performance Theater in Bellingham

Performance theater had an extensive history in the original towns around Bellingham Bay. The first theater, the Purdy Opera House, was built in 1888 in the town of Whatcom. Other entertainment houses that are now gone included the Casino, Lighthouse Theatre, Thistle Opera House, Bellingham Opera House, Beck's Theatre/American Theatre, Le Petit/Grand, Pantages/Panama, Sullivan and Considine, and the Edison/Liberty/Eqyptian Theatre. The local Bellingham Theatre Guild has been active since the late 1920s, and productions have been staged at Western Washington University since its inception in 1899. Vaudeville shows and plays were performed from the late 1880s into the mid-1930s on local stages, and a variety of well-known productions and famous performers, including Al Jolson and Frances Gumm (Judy Garland), were booked here. Shortly after Thomas Edison developed the first motion picture in 1893, opera houses and theaters were transformed to accommodate movie projectors and presented a combination of vaudeville, plays, and movies. The growing popularity of motion pictures and radio, together with social and economic factors, led to the rapid decline and virtual collapse of vaudeville during the early 1930s. Local performance theaters were torn down for more modern structures, parking garages, or drive thru facilities, and the only surviving performance theater in downtown today is the Mt. Baker Theatre, built in 1927.

Bellingham, Washington · United States