Overtown's Historic Lyric Theater Is Miami's Pioneer Playhouse

MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Whitney Houston was featured in a music video shot in Overtown's historic Lyric Theater. She knew the history. 

Major Black entertainment celebrities had been appearing there since 1913, in what was described at the time as "possibly the most beautiful and costly playhouse owned by Colored people in all the Southland."

The Lyric was a first for Miami's very early cultural scene.

Today, the Lyric is a cultural center, theater, and archive.

The Lyric was built in 1913 and loomed over what was then called Colored Town, now, known as  Miami's Overtown.

Timothy Barber is the Executive Director of The Black Archives History & Research Foundation of South Florida, which is housed in the restored theater.

Barber told CBS4 News, "A lot of people don't know about it. We get every day that someone comes, they say, 'I never knew that was here.'"

The historic theater is a survivor, as most all the buildings from Overtown's hay days are gone. Bulldozed, taken down when construction of I-95 sliced the historic neighborhood in half.

What saved the Lyric? Some say it was because at one time the Lyric Theater building served as a church.

Barber said, "Everybody wanted to know why the building wasn't knocked down. We believe they felt it was a church. A rich history would have been lost."

"This was the first playhouse built in Miami. It predates the Gusman Theater, which was the Olympic Theater, which was built in 1925," Barber is proud to say.

The Lyric opened in 1913. It was built by Gender Walker a Black man. It was a vaudeville and silent movie house later the likes of "Mahalia Jackson performing, Langston Hughes reading poetry, this theater was a cultural anchor, says Barber

W.E.B. DuBoise, author of The Souls of Black Folk, who was one of the foremost intellectuals of his era lectured at the Lyric. 

Through the years, there was much more than silent films, song and dance going on at the Lyric.

The Theater was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1980s through the work of Dorthy Jenkins Fields.

Through the years, there have been major improvements including a glass-enclosed lobby, the stage was rebuilt and the enhanced facilities for the growing archives which chronicle the rich history of the Black political, economic and social influence in the Magic City.

The historic theater is in use almost weekly for cultural events, concerts, and shows.

Barber summed up the story of the Lyric Theater by saying, "It was an anchor in 1913. We are pushing to make it an anchor again the 2000s."