The Orpheum Theatre is back, and this time the venerable venue itself may steal the show.
Wichita’s oldest theater closed its doors in May 2025 to embark on a 15-month renovation project to fully restore the interior. The improvements include new seating on the main and balcony floors, new sound and lighting, an upgraded HVAC system, renovated dressing rooms and modern ADA accessibility features.
Those amenities, important as they may be, are not what have Orpheum backers most excited. Instead, they are raving about work that artisans have done to restore the original interior.
“For the restoration, I know people are most excited for the seats, of course,” executive director Stacee Olden said. “I am most excited about showing off the original atmospheric design of the theater, which consists of the grand proscenium having plaster repair and decorative painting bringing it back to life, the original rare fire curtain that boasts a gorgeous art mural of a couple walking through a courtyard, as well as the twinkling starlight in the sky that will sweep across our ceiling once again.”
In other words, the Orpheum may not have looked this good since it first opened its doors in 1922.
Theater goers can judge for themselves this month. The Orpheum will host a Reopening and 104th Anniversary Celebration starting at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4. The event will feature live performances, self-guided tours and a reveal of the new First Street mural to cap the night. Tickets are $20.
After catching its breath, the theater will host concerts by Billy Idol (Sept. 21), The Revivalists (Sept. 26) and Lady A (Sept. 27) in rapid succession.
The Orpheum first opened on Sept. 4, 1922, with five live acts and an hour-long silent movie. The theater’s designer was John Eberson, an Austrian-American architect who pioneered the atmospheric style of theater design, in which the audience was made to feel they were sitting outside — in the case of the Orpheum, in an ornate Spanish garden set under shimmering ceiling lights that mimick stars.
The Orpheum is the second-oldest surviving example of the atmospheric stye.
According to its website, 10 local investors put up $20,000 each to seed what eventually became a $750,000 project. When it opened at First and Broadway, the latter was still known as Lawrence Avenue.
Iconic performers who appeared there in the theater’s early years include escape artist Harry Houdini, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Louie Armstrong and Mickey Rooney. The theater continued operating as a movie house, at one time showing adult films, until the advent of multiscreen theaters caused it to close in 1976.
After several other historic theaters were demolished here, preservationists stepped in to save the Orpheum. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places and eventually taken over by a nonprofit, but the interior had been stripped and fallen into complete disrepair by the time restoration began in the 1990s. As a stopgap measure, used seats were imported from another theatre and the City Hall auditorium. Although the seats became a common source of complaints, about 400 were sold to memorabilia seekers at $30 each before the just-completed renovation started.
Early work concentrated on infrastructure such as the roof and gutters, heating, air and electrical systems, although the installation of a new neon marquee in 2001 brilliantly lit up the corner of First and Broadway for the first time in decades. Renovation of bathrooms on the mezzanine and restoration of the ornate lobby followed.
In 2022, Orpheum backers announced the Second Century Campaign, with the goal of raising $9.5 million to complete the theater’s restoration. Retired architect Jeff Van Sickle, who sits on the Orpheum board with his wife, Janice, said he’s not surprised the fundraising campaign succeeded.
“I think people consider the Orpheum kind of a gem,” he said. “People come back and tell stories of going to the theater as youngsters in Wichita, or taking
their kids there when it was not in the greatest of shapes.”
In addition to admiring the original architecture and restoration work, Van Sickle said the theater provides the city with an important mid-size venue. “We need a theater of that scope and size,” he said, adding that Wichita “has proven itself to be a cultural town. The
city just seems to be really on fire culturally. It was a good time for it.”
Olden said one of the final pieces of the restoration was figuring out the best way to roll it out. With the help of the philanthropic and social group called the Grumpy Old Men, the theater brought in multiple Grammy winner John Legend to perform a special concert on Aug. 30. Tickets quickly sold out.
“Once we landed exactly where we wanted with John Legend as our grand reopener, everything fell perfectly into place,” Olden said.
At 104 years old, the Orpheum will always have things to fix, she said. “But I can tell you the theme around our design development planning phase was, ‘Let’s make this last for another 100 years.’ So that was our effort going in, to have the foresight to think ahead and beyond those of us here now, to make it a little easier for others to steward this historic building down the road and keep the lights shining bright at First and Broadway.”
For tickets to the reopening visit orpheumwichita.com or call 316-755-7328.
