Dunbar Theater / Lincoln Theater

Neighborhood:Center City

Address:
Broad and Lombard Streets.
Philadelphia, PA 19146

Significance:
African American bankers E. C. Brown and Andrew Stevens opened the Dunbar Theater at the southwest corner of Broad and Lombard Streets in 1919, with plans to offer refined entertainment. However, within two years, business floundered and Brown and Stevens sold the theater to John T. Gibson, the black owner of the more raucous Standard Theater on South Street. Later, during the Depression, Gibson was forced to sell the theater to white owners, who renamed it the Lincoln Theater. From the 1920s to 1940s, the 1400-seat theater hosted major performers such as Duke Ellington, Louise Beavers, Willie Bryant, Lena Horne, Don Redman, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Paul Robeson and more.

Type of Historic Resource:theater

Extant: no

Historical Marker:PA Historical Marker

Text of Historical Marker:
Erected here by Black bankers, this theater was home to the Lafayette Players, popular vaudeville entertainers. Later bought by white interests and renamed the Lincoln, it hosted major Black performers from the 1920s into the 1940s.