![\"Street](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4044\/4378082958_7ee73deab6.jpg\" "\\"Street")
<\/a>This photograph likely taken prior to 1902, the Club Theater is the steepled building on the right. The Keystone Hotel at Fourth and Main Street is just down the block with the conical roof.<\/p><\/div>\n
The first production to grace the stage of the theater was Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII.\u00a0 Centuries before, when Shakespeare’s Globe Theater had produced the play, an accident during the show had resulted in a fire that burned the theater to the ground.\u00a0 Tragically, the Club Theater would later suffer a similar fate.<\/p>\n
The clubhouse section of the theater was formally dedicated on March 4th, 1891, with Joplin’s finest in attendance.\u00a0 It was a scene of well-dressed gentlemen sipping spirits and filling the air with the rich aroma of Havana’s finest. Speakers included the head of the Joplin Club, W.H. Picher, who spoke and then read from a letter sent to the Joplin Club from Governor David Francis.\u00a0 The next to speak was the Honorable Gabriel Schmuck, who had traveled from Galena, Kansas, and then a local judge, O.H. Picher.\u00a0 Other speakers, from nearby Carthage, Webb City, and Neosho all spoke of the prominence and promise of Joplin.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The New Club Theater as pictured in 1902<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>An ad for Attorney General Herbert Hadley is evidence of the powerful and important figures who the Club Theater hosted in its heyday.<\/p><\/div>\n
Eleven years later, wear and tear had taken its toll upon the Club Theater. By this time the Joplin Club had sold its interest in the theater to other investors, and renovations were begun in August, 1902 at a reported cost of at least $15,000. Period newspapers claimed the newly refurbished theater had no equal in the great state of Missouri with the exception of perhaps the Willis Wood Theater in Kansas City.\u00a0 Renovation work had taken three months to complete. Workers replaced stained and worn panels with new panels of empire red and ivory wainscoting trimmed with gold.\u00a0 Gold and ivory were also used to dazzling effect throughout the interior in the ornamentation of the boxes, gallery and balcony fronts.<\/p>\n
<\/a>An interior illustration of the Club Theater<\/p><\/div>\n
For the wealthy, eight boxes were available as well as six loges. All were carpeted with plush red velvet.\u00a0 The same lush carpeting extended to the gallery floor for the enjoyment of those of more modest means.\u00a0 The stage was expanded to a size of forty-five by sixty-five feet, with an arch overhead complete with a sounding board painted a soft blue and decorated with white clouds and branching red roses.\u00a0 The stage even had the capability to expand even greater to allow for the production of the most modern and elaborate plays or musicals.<\/p>\n
Of the men in charge, only one was a local to Joplin, Don W. Stuart. Stuart had worked at the theater under its previous management.\u00a0 The other three were essentially absentee owners, C.U. Philley from St. Joseph, L.M. Crawford of Topeka, Kansas, and F.C. Zehrung of Lincoln, Nebraska.\u00a0 All three men were involved in the entertainment business.\u00a0 For another six years, the New Club Theater was the premiere venue in Joplin, attracting operas, minstrel shows, and famous conductors as they swept across the nation entertaining Americans with the music of a new century.\u00a0 In that time, the theater charged anywhere from ten to thirty cents for admission.<\/p>\n