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LRS Home • Schedule • Tickets • Theatres 
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2013 THEATRES The 27th season of Last Remaining Seats will take place in the following historic theatres of downtown Los Angeles' Broadway Historic Theatre District, The Music Center of Los Angeles County, and Beverly Hills.  Los Angeles TheatreThe Music Center's Dorothy Chandler PavilionOrpheum TheatrePalace TheatreSaban Theatre |
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Los Angeles Theatre (1931) 615 South Broadway The most lavish and last built of Broadway’s great movie palaces, the Los Angeles was designed by legendary theatre architect S. Charles Lee. It was constructed in 1931 at an estimated cost of more than one million dollars. Patterned after the celebrated Fox theatre in San Francisco, the Los Angeles recalls the glories of the French Baroque. The façade rises five stories, decorated with huge columns and accented with urns, angels, and vines. Its majestic lobby features mirrors, fluted columns, sparkling chandeliers, finely detailed plaster ornament, and a sunburst motif alluding to France’s “Sun King,” Louis XIV. A grand central staircase leads to a crystal fountain. In addition to its lavish decor, the Los Angeles originally boasted a number of unusual amenities. These included an electric indicator to monitor available seats, soundproof “crying rooms” (for parents with crying children) above the loge, a staffed playroom in the basement, and a glamorous ladies’ lounge featuring sixteen private compartments, each finished in a different marble. In the walnut-paneled basement lounge, a periscope-like system of prisms relayed the featured film from the auditorium to a secondary screen, allowing patrons to watch the film while socializing. The Los Angeles has undergone a number of incremental improvements in recent years and is a popular filming and special-event location. |
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The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (1964) 135 North Grand Avenue Welton Becket and Associates designed the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion as the first and largest structure in the Music Center of Los Angeles County. The entire complex is in the New Formalist style popular in the 1960s. Becket's firm used its signature approach of "Total Design," designing everything on the exterior and interior -- down to the typography and restaurant flatware -- for a fully integrated, cohesive experience. The five-story building features a modern colonnade, sweeping staircases, and lavish interiors with massive chandeliers. The elegant interior space features honey-toned onyx and nearly eighty crystal light fixtures. Its three massive chandeliers each contain 24,000 individual pieces of hand-polished crystal from Munich. The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has hosted countless performances by the best musicians and entertainers in the world. It housed the L.A. Philharmonic for decades and hosted Academy Awards ceremonies between 1969 and 1987. It is now home to L.A. Opera, sharing its stage with Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center. |
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Orpheum Theatre (1926) 842 South Broadway This theatre was the fourth and final home of the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit in Los Angeles. Its Beaux Arts exterior leads to a grand French interior with gold-leaf decoration, silk wall panels, marble pilasters, and enormous chandeliers. The downstairs lounge is more restrained, with rich paneling, a mock fireplace, and a Spanish tile floor. The theatre’s original Mighty Wurlitzer organ is the last remaining theatre organ on Broadway. The Orpheum has played host to some of the most venerable names in show business, including burlesque queen Sally Rand, a young Judy Garland (as Francis Gumm), the Marx Brothers, Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, Sophie Tucker, and jazz greats Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. The 1960s brought a completely new dimension to the theatre – “rock and roll” – with performers such as Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, and Little Stevie Wonder. In 2001, the Orpheum closed its doors as a first-run movie house and underwent a $3 million renovation under the supervision of Steve Needleman of ANJAC, whose family has owned the building since 1964. The project upgraded production capabilities and audience amenities while cleaning and restoring the theatre’s historic elements. The Orpheum now serves as a popular event venue and filming location, with live/work spaces in the building’s upper floors. |
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Palace Theatre (1911) 630 South Broadway The Palace opened in 1911 as the third home of the Orpheum vaudeville circuit in Los Angeles. It is one of the oldest theatres in Los Angeles and the oldest remaining original Orpheum theatre in the U.S. It hosted many major stars early in its history, including Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, Fred Astaire, and a young Rita Hayworth. The greatest singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats, and animal acts in vaudeville performed here until 1926, when the Orpheum moved to its fourth and final location at Ninth Street and Broadway and the theatre was renamed the Palace. The theatre was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh, one of the principal theatre architects in the west between 1909 and 1930. Lansburgh also designed the 1926 Orpheum theatre at 842 S. Broadway. In addition to commissions in Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis and New Orleans, his works included the Warner Bros. Theatre Building in Hollywood (1927) and the interiors of the local Wiltern and El Capitan theatres. Loosely styled after a Florentine early Renaissance palazzo, the façade of the Palace features multicolored terra-cotta swags, flowers, fairies, and theatrical masks illustrating the spirit of entertainment. Four panels depicting the muses of vaudeville -- Song, Dance, Music, and Drama -- were sculpted by noted Spanish sculptor Domingo Mora. While the structure's exterior displays Italian influences, its interior decoration is distinctly French, with garland-draped columns and a color scheme of pale pastels. The auditorium was designed with excellent acoustics for a pre-amplified age. Although the original seating capacity neared 2,000, the intimate vertical design with two balconies ensured that no one was far from the stage. The original box seats were removed in the 1930s; the walls were plastered and painted over with massive murals by Candelario Rivas depicting pastoral scenes. The theatre now seats around 1,000. |
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The Fox Wilshire Theatre was the showpiece of this classic black-and-silver Art Deco building, which also contained commercial, residential, and office space. Built in 1930 by S. Charles Lee, the architect of the Los Angeles and Tower Theatres, the Fox Wilshire is an early example of his Art Deco designs. When it opened, Southwest Builder and Contractor called the 2,500-seat theatre the ultimate in dazzling and daring. Fox regarded it as the studio's flagship movie house outside of downtown. A vice president lived in the apartment at the top of the tower, under a tall neon Fox sign. The auditorium and commercial spaces survive, without the Fox sign. For many years it was used as a performing arts venue and a church. The auditorium is largely intact, with many original fixtures and decorative elements remaining. Renovations in the 1980s expanded the lobby to include a bar and new flooring. Another renovation began in 2008, and the theatre was renamed in 2009 in honor of donors Haim and Cheryl Saban. The recent renovations included restoring the gold and metal leaf of the proscenium, which had been painted over. The original lobby doors were recreated and replaced, and the drop ceiling above the ticket booth was removed to reveal the original underneath. |
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