By Rory King Email Post
I have some great memories of the Orpheum theatre. I grew up about two blocks away, on Kline Street (right across the street from Roosevelt School—where Miss Mortrude tried to teach kindergarten to quite a few of us terrorists!).
In addition to the wonderful movies (I never missed an Audie Murphy movie—he was the Congressional Metal of Honor winner who became a movie star and starred in his own biographical story, “To Hell and Back”), the Orpheum had the best buttered popcorn in town.
My Dad would give me an extra dime if I would walk down to the theatre and buy him a box and walk it back home. One night, I strolled in to the house and handed him an empty box. I had tucked the box under my arm, munching on the box of milk duds my dime had purchased, and the box had come open and all the popcorn spilled out on my way home. Shades of Hantzel and Gretl!
When our community theatre group was looking for a new home, we really wanted to purchase the Orpheum. Both the stage and the house were better suited for community theatre. We just couldn’t get the job done, and the Orpheum was sold and torn down. We then settled on the Capitol, and were able to raise the money and launch the remodeling project.
There was also a question asked about our first “kiss.” No, it wasn’t in the balcony of either the Orpheum or the Capitol! My first kiss was a stage kiss—Dianne Evenson (Rest in Peace) in “Wonderful Town” at the Civic Theatre—where, incidentally, I also smoked my first cigarette-- in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.” Like Bill Clinton, I didn’t inhale! Theatre can give rise to all sort of vices!
Rory King.
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