 Exterior of venue (c. 2010) | |
 | |
| Address | 1038 South Hill Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1614 |
|---|---|
| Location | Downtown Los Angeles |
| Coordinates | 34°02′28″N118°15′32″W / 34.041028°N 118.259005°W |
| Capacity | 1,700 |
| Current use | Nightclub |
| Construction | |
| Opened | August 15, 1927 |
| Architect | Stiles O. Clements |
| Website | |
| Official website | |
| Reference no. | 460 |
The Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, California, is a landmark former movie palace and current nightclub and music venue.
The Mayan Theater opened in August 1927 as a performance arts theater specializing in musical comedy. [1]
Leon Hefflin Sr. rented out the Mayan Theater downtown Los Angeles to produce the Sweet N' Hot, "Greatest Negro All Star Musical to Hit Coast." His business partner was Curtis Mosby, and the featured performer was Dorothy Dandridge. [2] The show had a run of eleven weeks and was reported as going to New York. [3] It closed to rave reviews and was covered by 20 different newspapers all over the country.
From 1971 to 1989, the theater was owned by pornographic filmmaker Carlos Tobalina. [4] [5] In the 1980s, the theater showed pornographic films. [6]
The theater has been a location in many films, including Sally of the Scandals , [7] The Bodyguard , Save the Tiger , Unlawful Entry , Rock 'n' Roll High School , and A Night at the Roxbury . It also featured in the eighth episode of the first season of GLOW .
In 1990, the Mayan Theater, with most of its lavish ornament intact, became a nightclub and music venue. It is designated as a Historic Cultural Monument. [8]
In 2022, Daft Punk also streamed a video recording of a show at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles from their 1997 Daftendirektour.
Designed by Stiles O. Clements of Morgan, Walls & Clements, the façade of the Mayan Theater includes stylized pre-Columbian patterns and figures designed by sculptor Francisco Cornejo. [1] This was his major work. [9]
The Mayan Theater is a prototypical example of the many ornate exotic revival-style theaters of the late 1920s, Mayan Revival in this case. The well-preserved lobby is called "The Hall of Feathered Serpents," the auditorium includes a chandelier based on the Aztec calendar stone, and the original fire curtain included images of Mayan jungles and temples. [10]
A movie palace is a large, elaborately decorated movie theater built from the 1910s to the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 1925 and 1930. With the rise of television in the 1950s, movie attendance dropped, while the rising popularity of large multiplex chains in the 1980s and 1990s signaled the obsolescence of single-screen theaters. Many movie palaces were razed or converted into multiple-screen venues or performing arts centers, though some have undergone restoration and reopened to the public as historic buildings.
El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple are owned by The Walt Disney Company and serve as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.
The Pellissier Building and adjoining Wiltern Theatre is a 12-story, 155-foot (47 m) Art Deco landmark at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The entire complex is commonly referred to as the Wiltern Center. Clad in a blue-green glazed architectural terra-cotta tile and situated diagonal to the street corner, the complex is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the United States. The Wiltern building is owned privately, and the Wiltern Theatre is operated by Live Nation's Los Angeles division.
Stiles Oliver Clements was an architect practicing in Los Angeles and Southern California.
The Million Dollar Theatre at 307 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles is one of the first movie palaces built in the United States. It opened in 1917 with the premiere of William S. Hart's The Silent Man. It's the northernmost of the collection of historical movie palaces in the Broadway Theater District and stands directly across from the landmark Bradbury Building. The theater is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Hollywood Pantages Theatre, formerly known as RKO Pantages Theatre and Fox-Pantages Theatre, also known as The Pantages, is a live theater and former movie theater located at 6233 Hollywood Boulevard, near Hollywood and Vine, in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca, the theater was the last built by the vaudeville impresario Alexander Pantages and also the last movie palace built in Hollywood.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The Tower Theatre is a historic movie theater that opened in 1927 in the Broadway Theater District of Downtown Los Angeles.
The Five Points Theatre, formerly known as Sun-Ray Cinema, Riverside Theater and 5 Points Theatre, is a historic two-screen movie theater in Jacksonville, Florida. The first theater in Florida equipped to show talking pictures, it opened in March 1927 in the Five Points district of the Riverside and Avondale neighborhood. In January 2025 the theatre will be reopened as a music venue called FIVE.
The Arcade Theatre is a historic former vaudeville and movie theater in the Broadway district of Los Angeles, California. Commissioned by real estate developer William May Garland in 1910, it originally operated under the direction of Alexander Pantages. In 1920, the Pantages operation moved to a new auditorium on 7th Street; thereafter, the theater became known as Dalton's Broadway for two years before ultimately taking the Arcade name in 1924 in association with the adjacent Spring Arcade building. Metropolitan Theatres later operated the facility as a grindhouse until its closure in 1992.
Morgan, Walls & Clements was an architectural firm based in Los Angeles, California and responsible for many of the city's landmarks, dating back to the late 19th century.
Vista Theatre, formerly Lou Bard Playhouse and Bard’s Hollywood Theatre, also known as The Vista, is a historic single-screen movie theater in Los Angeles, California, located in Los Feliz on the border with East Hollywood.
The Beacham Theatre is a cinema built in 1921 by Braxton Beacham Sr. in the city of Orlando, Florida. The current address of the theater is 46 North Orange Avenue, and it is located at the southwest corner of Orange Avenue and Washington Street. The building's current lack of impressive architecture is offset by its significant cultural history. The Beacham Theatre was considered an important contributing structure when the Downtown Orlando historic district was created in 1980 and the building was granted local landmark status in 1987.
Paris Theatre, formerly Third Avenue Theatre and also known as Paris Theater or Ray's Paris Theatre, is an historic building in Portland, Oregon's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, in the United States. The theatre was constructed in 1890 and opened as a burlesque house. It was later converted to a cinema, then a club and music venue, before serving as an adult movie theater until 2016. The building was a live venue and nightclub until it closed in October 2019.
The State Theatre, formerly Loew's State Theatre, at 703 S. Broadway, is a movie theatre that opened in November 1921 in what is now the Jewelry District and Broadway Theatre District in the historic core of Downtown Los Angeles.
Leon Norman Hefflin Sr. was a pioneering African-American producer, director, business owner, furniture manufacturer, and entrepreneur. After losing his large and successful manufacturing business in the Depression he rebounded to produce the first and largest outdoor jazz entertainment event of its kind, the "Cavalcade of Jazz," in 1945. Held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, it was part of the Central Ave jazz scene, and showcased over 125 artists over 15 years.
The Roxie Theatre is a historic former movie theater in the Broadway Theater District of Los Angeles, California. The venue opened in 1931 as the last theater to be built on Broadway. Architect John M. Cooper's Art Deco design of the Roxie remained the only theater of that style in the downtown neighborhood. In 1978, Metropolitan Theatres converted the space into a Spanish-language filmhouse. Following the Roxie's closure in 1989, the lobby was converted into retail space whereas the auditorium was left intact.
The Belasco Theater is a historic theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Opened in 1926, it operated as a playhouse and briefly as a movie theater until its closure in 1950, after which it was used for non-theater purposes. The building was renovated and reopened as a music venue called The Belasco in 2011. Live Nation became its operator in 2020.
The Regent Theatre is a live music venue and historic former movie theater in the Downtown section of Los Angeles, California. Opened as the National Theatre in 1914, it is the oldest remaining theater building on South Main Street. Following its initial status as a first-run filmhouse, it began screening second-run programming in the 1920s amidst a widespread decline of the vicinity's entertainment scene in favor of the newer Broadway Theater District. After serving as a grindhouse, the Regent was later converted to an adult movie theater before shuttering in 2000. Upon the completion of renovations, the facility was reopened as a concert venue in 2014; Live Nation became the operator in 2019.
Rialto Theater, formerly Quinn's Rialto Theater and Grauman’s Rialto, is a historic former movie theater located at 812 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.
Media related to Mayan Theater at Wikimedia Commons
| Authority control databases: Geographic |
|---|
