The Academy of Music (1905-1958)

Q-6-49

The Academy of Music was a regional center of entertainment early in the 20th century. Its neo-classical facade and elaborate interior date from the rebuilding following a fire in 1911. The theater featured local talent, vaudeville acts, and performances by national and international luminaries such as Maude Adams, Sarah Bernhardt, Eubie Blake, George M. Cohan, W. C. Handy, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Anna Pavlova, Will Rogers, and John Philip Sousa. Primarily a movie house after 1928, the Academy closed in 1958 and was vacant for decades. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 and, after restoration, reopened in 2018 as the theater of the Academy Center of the Arts.

Department of Historic Resources, 2018

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Academy of Music National Register of Historic Places Nomination (1969). Richmond Times-Dispatch, 21 April 1911, 28 May 1912. James M. Elson, Academy of Music, Lynchburg, Virginia: The Golden Age of Live Performance (Lynchburg Historical Foundation, Inc., 1993). https://academycenter.org James M. Elson, “The Academy of Music Theatre on the Eve of Its Centennial,” Lynch’s Ferry (Fall/Winter 2004/2005): 4-12. James M. Elson, Lynchburg, Virginia: The First Two Hundred Years, 1786-1986 (Lynchburg: Warwick House Publishers, 2004). S. Allen Chambers, Lynchburg: An Architectural History (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981).