August 28, 1910
“Twin” Sam S. Shubert theaters open on the same day in Minneapolis
and Saint Paul. Saint Paul’s Shubert Theater was renamed the Fitzgerald
Theater in 1994.
For the Minneapolis Shubert, architect William Albert Swasey designed a 1,500-seat theater with two shallow balconies and simple ornamentation, built at a cost of $250,000. It is one of only two surviving Swasey theaters.
1910
The Shubert, managed by Alexander G. “Buzz” Bainbridge is authorized
to form a resident acting ensemble to keep the box office busy during the
summer months.
The Bainbridge Players were to Minneapolis what the Guthrie Theater is today: the community’s leading professional theater company.
1915
Film arrives at the Shubert accompanied by a 40-piece pit orchestra.
1918
The Shubert’s first remodeling occurs when all city theaters close
due to the flu epidemic.
1933
Buzz Bainbridge becomes mayor of Minneapolis and the longest-lived stock
company in Minnesota history disbands.
1935
Shuberts sell the theater to William Alvin Steffes who renames the theater
the Alvin.
1940
The theater closed its doors. Two months later, under new management,
the Alvin is reopened as a house of burlesque.
1941
An early morning fire guts the stagehouse, necessitating a top-to-bottom
renovation that takes five months.
1953
The Rev. Russell H. Olson, a gospel preacher, leases the building and
transforms it into a street front church called the Minneapolis Evangelistic
Auditorium.
1957
Ted Mann buys the Shubert as a downtown Minneapolis venue for film. The
theater reopens with the Minnesota premiere of Michael Todd’s Around
the World in Eighty Days.
Sept. 5, 1983
The theater closes its doors for seemingly the last time.
