Victory Gardens Biograph Theater

Victory Gardens Theater converted the historic Biograph into a new 299-seat mainstage theater, which opened in September 2006.

Read about the transformation of the Biograph.

So, what happened to the original space on Lincoln Avenue? It's now called Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater and is home to resident companies About Face, Eclipse, MPAACT, Remy Bumppo and Shattered Globe.

History of the Biograph: Most famous not for what happened inside, but outside. Notorious criminal John Dillinger was killed in 1934 by the FBI outside, where he had just seen a screening of "Manhattan Melodrama." Designed by architect Samuel N. Cowen, the theater originally opened in 1914 as was one of at least four movie houses built in Chicago in the 1910s. D.W. Griffith premiered "Birth of a Nation" here. The theater was rehabbed in the 1970's to create a four-screen multiplex, destroying it's original decor. The theater is said to be haunted and many have claimed they have seen apparitions and felt cold spots inside the theater.

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Sheffield/De Paul theaters, Lincoln Park theaters, Chicago theaters, Chicago theaters