- Green Lake Aqua Theater
The Green Lake Aqua Theater was an outdoor
theater located atGreen Lake inSeattle, Washington .The Aqua Theater was built in
1950 for the first Seafair Summer Festival in order to house an attraction called the Aqua Follies and their "swimusicals" - a combination of aqua ballet, stage dancing, and comedy. The first ever performance at the venue was onNovember 8 , 1950. [http://www.ledzeppelin-database.com/geekbaseweb/forumpage.aspx?g=posts&t=25 Venue information and background] www.ledzeppelin-database.com]The theater's stage was round, and the
orchestra pit nearby was recessed and floating. The theater had high diving platforms near the stage. Its grandstand was fan-shaped and built to a capacity of 5,600 seats. The venue also featured a "moat".The Aqua Follies continued to run during Seafair until
1965 . Outside of the Seafair schedule the theater was the stage for plays and musicals whose directors always took advantage of the unique setting.In the summer of
1962 , coinciding with theCentury 21 Exposition , the Aqua Theater stage was host to a jazz festival, popular performers such asBob Hope , two plays, and a special presentation of the Aqua Follies with 100 performers.After the World's Fair, summer productions languished (usually blamed on Seattle's unpredictable weather) until the Aqua Theater was mostly abandoned—during a 1969 concert by the
Grateful Dead the grandstand was found to be unsafe because of poor maintenance.Beginning in 1970 the theater was dismantled and re-purposed. The area to the right stage offers a pedestrian pier over the lake. To the left of the stage, crew shells are stored. A small craft center was put into the place formerly held by most of the grandstand. Some sections of the grandstand were left in place. [ [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1052] Aqua Theater on HistoryLink ] [http://www.ledzeppelin-database.com/geekbaseweb/forumpage.aspx?g=posts&t=25 Venue information and background] ]
References
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