Pantages Playhouse Theatre, National historic theatre in Winnipeg, Canada.
Pantages Playhouse Theatre is a two-storey former vaudeville house in Winnipeg's Exchange District. Its façade carries a lit marquee across the front plus classical columns, brackets, frieze and cornice. Inside, the original layout survives, with a lobby of marble sheathing and a decorative plaster ceiling.
The theatre was built in 1913 and 1914 and opened on February 9, 1914, as part of one of the largest independent vaudeville chains in North America. Over the following decades it went through several renovations but kept its original architectural character.
The lobby still has its original marble floor and ornate ceiling details from the early 1900s. Walking through it gives a clear sense of how much care went into the craftsmanship of that era.
The theatre sits in the heart of Winnipeg and is easy to reach on foot or by public transit. Arriving a little early gives you time to look around the interior before the performance begins.
Of the 75 theatres in the Pantages chain, the Winnipeg house is one of the few that survived. Alexander Pantages said all his acts originated in Winnipeg before moving around the circuit, and the Creole Band played Canada's first jazz concert here in 1914, the first outside the United States.
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