Frolic Theatre (Bessemer)

This article is about the Bessemer theater. For the Birmingham theater, see Frolic Theater.

The Frolic Theatre was a Vaudeville theater and cinema open to African-American audiences which was located at 1914 1st Avenue North in Bessemer in the 1920s-1940s. It was owned and operated by Ben Jaffe's Steel Cities Amusement Company, which also operated the Palace Theatre in Ensley.

In a July 1927 letter advertising the year-old Palace for sale, Jaffe related that it and Frolic were part of the same stop for the T.O.B.A. circuit, with the live shows playing in Bessemer on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday while the Ensley house played pictures, and then vice-versa on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

References

• Jaffe, Ben (July 25, 1927) Letter to Ben Stein, Macon, Georgia. Theater Records Series, Charles Henry Douglass, Jr. Business Records, 1906-1967, Middle Georgia Archives, presented in the Digital Library of Georgia - accessed September 21, 2019