Walnut Street Theatre

In 1789 Pennsylvania’s Quaker-inspired restrictions on theatrical activity were lifted. This paved the way for the construction of the Chestnut Street Theatre in 1791-93, and that was followed by the Walnut Street Theatre, the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States. It traces its origins to the “New Circus,” erected on this site in 1808-1809 for equestrian performances by Victor Pépin and Jean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard.

An 80-foot dome was soon erected over the circus arena, and in 1811-1812 the building was converted into a proper theater by the Greek Revival architect William Strickland, who added a stage and orchestra pit. Its first theatrical production was The Rivals, a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan that had debuted in London in 1775. President Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette were in attendance on opening night.  

Briefly reconverted to a circus in 1822, the hodgepodge of buildings was swept away and entirely replaced by a purpose-built theater in 1827-28. The surviving, highly disciplined classical exterior is the work of the English-born John Haviland (1792-1852), who also designed the first Franklin Institute building (on Seventh Street), Eastern State Penitentiary, and the school for the deaf (at Broad and Pine Street), which was long the home of the University of the Arts.

In the nineteenth century, the stage of the Walnut was trod by the greatest actors of the Anglo-American theater world: Edmund Kean (1787-1833), Edwin Forrest (1806-1872, who debuted at the Walnut in 1820), Edwin Booth (1833-1893, brother of Lincoln’s assassin), and the intermarried Drew and Barrymore families (Lionel, Ethel, Drew, etc). And there was technical innovation. In 1837 the Walnut was the first theatre to install gas footlights, and in 1892 it was an early adopter of electricity.

In 1920-21, the prolific theater architect William H. Lee rebuilt the auditorium with a steel frame, inside the old exterior. Throughout the twentieth century the theater continued to welcome celebrity actors: Lauren Bacall, Marlon Brando, George M. Cohan, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Julie Harris, Helen Hayes, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Lemon, the Marx Brothers, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Will Rogers, George C. Scott, William Shatner, Jessica Tandy, and Ethel Waters. The Walnut Theatre also hosted the pre-Broadway try-outs of many plays that became American classics, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Mister Roberts (1948), The Diary of Anne Frank (1955), and A Raisin in the Sun (1959).

In 1969-72 the interior was again rearranged and reconstructed in a simpler style, while the historic façade was scrupulously restored by the firm of John Dickey. The theater is operated by the Walnut Street Theatre Company.