3. Boston & Minneapolis

How did some of the finest vaudeville theatres reinvent themselves in order to survive after vaudeville itself withered and died in the 1930s?

Geoffrey Wheeler concludes his series about the history of American vaudeville

The Boston Opera House, the Orpheum and the Pantages in Minneapolis are now flourishing theatrical and musical venues, but it took millions of dollars of investment and many long years of painstaking restoration and rebuilding, as well as a change of attitude towards the preservation of the past.

Producer Libby Cross

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2006.