The Orpheum Theatre opened on August 28, 1927, showing vaudeville acts as well as motion pictures. The Orpheum transitioned to mostly showing films in the mid-1930s and was open until 1967, when the theater closed and the building was demolished. The Washington Plaza Hotel (now the Westin) was built on the Orpheum’s old site.

These images show the cover and a selection of pages from an Orpheum Theater logbook for the years 1927 through 1937. The entries list the names and addresses of the acts that played at the theater each evening, beginning with opening night on August 28, 1927. The pages shown here include the full opening night roster, and highlight some of the artists performing at the Orpheum during this period. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (performing December 4, 1927) was a tap dancer and one of the first Black vaudeville performers to perform solo. Eubie Blake (performing with his band on November 11, 1928) was a composer and bandleader and one of the most popular Black musicians at the time. The United States Indian Band (performing June 2, 1929) was made up of Indigenous musicians from multiple tribes and began as the school band at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Caption information source: “Orpheum Theatre (Seattle),” by Eric L. Flom, HistoryLink, retrieved from https://www.historylink.org/File/4267