The Golden Gate Theatre is a performance venue located at 1 Taylor Street at the corner of Golden Gate Avenue in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

. It opened in 1922 as a

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

house and later was a major

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

. In the 1960s it boasted a

Cinerama Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporati ...

screen, but by the early 1970s it had declined and was showing

blaxploitation Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president ...

films. It was restored and reopened as a performing arts venue in 1979. The theatre is part of the Market Street Theatre and Loft District which is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

The 2,300-seat Golden Gate Theatre was built in 1920-21Gallegos, Juan-Miguel (ndg
"Golden Gate Theatre"
''Cinema Treasures''"Market Street Theatre and Loft District"

in San Francisco and was designed by

G. Albert Lansburgh Gustave Albert Lansburgh (January 7, 1876 – April 1969) was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theaters. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 to 1930. Life and career Lan ...

for the

Radio-Keith-Orpheum RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...

(RKO) theater circuit; Lansburgh also designed the nearby Warfield Theatre at about the same time. It opened in March with seven vaudeville acts appearing in one night's performance. A reviewer for the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...

'' said of the new theater:

he auditoriumsuggests the outdoors, with none of the roofed-over feel that characterizes the average theatre. ... It is like sitting under a bit of blue sky, so effective is the color suggestion.

In the following decades, the theatre presented such performers as

The Andrews Sisters The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January ...

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...

Judy Garland Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...

Roy Rogers Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye; November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and television host. Following early work under his given name, first as co-founder of the Sons of the Pioneers and then acting, the rebra ...

The Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...

Ethel Waters Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her no ...

, the Marx Brothers, and

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the " Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and ...

, before RKO converted it in 1954 to present films, leasing it to the Cinerama Corporation.Hays, Gracie (June 17, 2014
"The Golden Age of the Golden Gate Theatre"
''SNH Magazine'' In the transition to showing movies, some of the interior architectural work was destroyed, with an

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...

replacing the central marble staircase, and

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in D ...

s being installed. In the 1960s the theatre was "twinned, divided into two theatres, with the balcony theatre being christened the "Penthouse Theatre." Even with this, business declined, and in 1972 RKO closed down both theatres down. The Golden Gate and the San Francisco Orpheum are owned by BroadwaySF, a theatrical producing company owned by

Carole Shorenstein Hays Carole Shorenstein Hays (born September 15, 1948 as Carole J. Shorenstein) is an American theatrical producer. Biography Shorenstein was one of three children born to real estate developer Walter Shorenstein and Phyllis Finley. Her father was ...

and

Robert Nederlander Robert Elliot Nederlander Sr. (born April 10, 1933) is an American attorney and businessman who served as the president of the Nederlander Organization, which has been involved in the live theatre industry since the early 20th century. He is al ...

; the company bought the Golden Gate in 1979 and mounted a total renovation for use as a theatre for plays and musicals. The first performance the new owners presented was ''

A Chorus Line ''A Chorus Line'' is a 1975 musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Set on the bare stage of a Broadway theater, the musical is centered on seventeen Broadway dancers ...

'', which was the first performance on the Golden Gate's stage in 25 years. BroadwaySF has presented many Broadway shows at the Golden Gate, such as '' Sweeney Todd'', '' Stomp'', '' Hairspray'', ''

Mamma Mia! Mama(s) or Mamma or Momma may refer to: Roles *Mother, a female parent *Mama-san, in Japan and East Asia, a woman in a position of authority *Mamas, a name for female associates of the Hells Angels Places * Mama, Russia, an urban-type settlemen ...

'', ''

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

'', and ''

Rent Rent may refer to: Economics *Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property *Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production *Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...

''. The theater also had the preview engagement of '' Legally Blonde: The Musical'' before it went to Broadway, as well as the pre-Broadway engagements of revival productions of ''

Cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dinin ...

'' (1987), ''

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' (often colloquially known as ''Joseph'') is a sung-through musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. ...

'' (1993), and ''

My Fair Lady ''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play '' Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons ...

'' (1981). The Theatre staged a national touring company production of ''

Fiddler on the Roof ''Fiddler on the Roof'' is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on ''Tevye and his Daughters'' (or ''Tevye the ...

'' starring Theodore Bikel as Tevye in 2001. The U.S. national tour of ''

South Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

'', based on the 2008

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual c ...

winning revival, played The Golden Gate Theatre in September 2009 before embarking on tour across the United States. A national tour of ''

'' starring

Harvey Fierstein Harvey Forbes Fierstein ( ; born June 6, 1952) is an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his theater work in '' Torch Song Trilogy'' and '' Hairspray'' and movie roles in '' Mrs. Doubtfire'', ''Independence Day'', an ...

played at the Golden Gate from January–February 21, 2010. In October 2014, the touring production of '' Pippin'' spent a number of weeks at the Golden Gate. This production starred television icon

Lucie Arnaz Lucie Désirée Arnaz (born July 17, 1951) is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Early life Arnaz was born at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of act ...

. During the run at the Golden Gate, she left the touring company for a few months so she could appear in the Broadway production. She was temporarily replaced by Tony Award-winning actress

Andrea Martin Andrea Louise Martin (born January 15, 1947) is an American-Canadian actress, singer, and comedian, best known for her work in the television series '' SCTV'' and ''Great News''. She has appeared in films such as '' Black Christmas'' (1974), ''W ...

, who originated the role of Berthe in the 2013 Broadway revival. The first national tour of '' Hedwig and the Angry Inch'' began a run at the Golden Gate on October 4, 2016. On June 27, 2013

WeWork WeWork Inc. is a provider of coworking spaces, including physical and virtual shared spaces, headquartered in New York City. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated of space, including in the United States and Canada, in 756 locatio ...

officially opened their second San Francisco location in the six floors above the theater. The new WeWork Golden Gate location will provide collaborative workspace for approximately 200 small businesses and startups.Mayor Lee Officially Opens New WeWork Location in Central Market
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References

External links

*{{official website, https://www.broadwaysf.com/ Music venues in San Francisco Theatres in San Francisco Cinemas and movie theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area Event venues established in 1922 Theatres completed in 1922 1932 establishments in California Spanish Revival architecture in California