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Building History

The Theatre Comique was one of the earliest "box houses" operating in Seattle, WA, opening in 1876. Box houses combined a bar with a theatre, with live performers also serving as servers to the venue's private boxes. Boxes were enclosed or curtained off spaces on the sides and balcony capable of viewing entertainment on the stage at one end. Women would move from box to box, encouraging patrons to buy drinks and provide tips. Most box houses were merely drinking establishments, but some served as scenes for prostitution. The Theatre Comique had 24 boxes. According to theatre historian Eugene C. Elliott, "...the Comique was the best fitted establishment of its kind in Washington Territory, and was one of the first of such places to be advertised as a theatre, with a permanent company." (See Eugene C. Elliott, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle, [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1944], p. 10.) The companies provided variety performances, with members of a troupe providing a regular menu of ensemble songs, solos, comic asides, and other various types of acts--contortionists, ventriloquists, gymnasts, magicians and the like.

Howard F. Grant, in The Story of Seattle's Early Theatres (Seattle: University Book Store, 1934), p. 20, said of the Theatre Comique: "A Variety house. The Theatre Comique had its grand opening on July 26, 1876. Most of the company were members of the San Francisco Variety Troupe. The original company boasted of eleven members. The Seattle Sunday Star, March 23, 1884 still carried a notice of the Theatre Comique, Washington street." (See Howard F. Grant, The Story of Seattle's Early Theatres, [Seattle: University Book Store, 1934], p. 20). As Grant noted, it may have occupied a basement location under a saloon and cigar store on a Washington Street corner. It is likely that the Theatre Comique had four separate locations in Seattle between 1876-1904. Its last location operated for one year, 1903-1904, at 410 5th Avenue South.

PCAD id: 18257