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The Blackstone, opened 29 January 1921 · the burlesque turn, 1928–29 · closed by the mayor's order, early October 1929
The house is in the theaters record; its burlesque season is the comedy record's, because burlesque — the comic sketches and the chorus line, played broad — was a comedy form, and this city's season of it ended by official act. The Blackstone opened on January 29, 1921, as a 2,500-seat picture house. When the Colfax (1927) and the Granada (1928) opened wired for sound, the Blackstone dropped films and turned to burlesque. The turn lasted into the autumn of 1929: Mayor Chester P. Montgomery ordered the house closed in early October 1929, the shows having been seen as offensive. Publix — Paramount's theatre arm — took the house over, repainted and reupholstered it, and reopened it on Christmas Day 1929 as the State Theatre, the name it kept. The episode prints at its documented size: one house, one season of burlesque, one mayoral closing — the whole of South Bend's documented burlesque record, and the only suppression of a comedy stage in the city's record.
Sources
- The theaters record in this history — the Blackstone's opening of January 29, 1921, the burlesque turn after the Colfax and Granada, Mayor Montgomery's closing order of early October 1929, and the Christmas Day 1929 reopening as the State Theatre under Publix.