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Also Known As: Jacob and Sparrow's Opera House; the Majestic; the Regent.

"Early in the 1880's a prominent theatrical manager in new York, H.r. Jacob, and his Montreal partner, J.R. Sparrow, bought a roller skating rink on the south side of Adelaide Street between Bay and Yonge streets and converted it into a theatre they named the Toronto Opera House. The place was also known as Jacob and Sparrow's Opera House and it catered to patrons of lurid melodrama until it was purchased in 1889 by Ambrose Small and his partner E.D. Stair of Detroit, who redid the interior and continued to offer lurid melodrama. In March 1903 a fire gutted the building's interior, but the place was reconstructed in a bare seven months and christened the 'Majestic Theatre' on 2 November 1903 by Mrs Fiske, who plaed the lead in Mary of Magdalen. According to seating plans of the Majestic published in 1904, the theatre at that time had 732 seats at orchestra level and 455 in the balcony. The gallery likely did not have space for more than 500 and fewer than that if safety and comfort became the governing criteria. Renamed the 'Regent' in 1920, the house became the 'flagship' of the newly formed Famous Players circuit, where the first film shown on 23 January 1920 was Pollyanna, starring Mary Pickford. The Regent was demolished in the 1930s. (pp.225-226)

Fairfield, Robert. "Theatre and Performance Halls." Early Stages: Theatre in Ontario 1800-1914. Ed. Ann Saddlemyer. University of Toronto Press, 1990. pp. 214-287.