Lyric Theatre

Hallowed names such as Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald walked across the Lyric stage when it was a major stop on the ‘Chitlin’ Circuit’ – the black live-entertainment trail of pre-integration USA. But as years passed both the theater and the neighborhood it served, Overtown, fell into dysfunctional disuse. Then the Black Archives History & Research Center of South Florida kicked in $1.5 million for renovations and overhauled everything. The phoenix reopened its doors in 1999 to appreciative neighbors, civic leaders and entertainers alike. A 2003 expansion feels a little too modern when juxtaposed with the Lyric’s elegant early-20th-century exterior, but it’s shiny, we guess.