Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 01:11:00

Every guest at the 1921 opening got chocolates, all 3,000 seats filled, and Houdini, Mae West and Bob Hope would all work the stage - the last survivor of Dallas's Theatre Row is still open for business. The Majestic Theatre, at 1925 Elm Street downtown, opened on 11 April 1921 as the two-million-dollar flagship of Karl Hoblitzelle's Interstate vaudeville empire. The pedigree is theatre royalty: John Eberson - later famous as the father of the atmospheric style - designed the Renaissance Revival house with an eclectic baroque interior evoking Italian gardens under a sky dome, replacing an earlier Majestic that burned in 1917. Vaudeville's giants shared its bills before the movies took over in the 1930s, with premieres drawing Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne in person. The decline nearly killed it: television and the suburbs emptied Elm Street's theatre district, and the Majestic closed in July 1973 - the last of its row still standing. The Hoblitzelle Foundation donated the building to the City of Dallas in 1976, the National Register listing followed in 1977, and a meticulous city-led restoration by the Oglesby Group brought it back. The 16 January 1983 reopening reset its purpose: reborn as a performing arts center with capacity trimmed to about 1,704 - the trade for a bigger orchestra pit and modern stage systems - the Majestic became the city-owned stage for concerts, comedy, dance, Broadway-scale tours and civic events, run today by the Dallas Office of Arts and Culture. The restoration rewards attention: the cream terra cotta facade, the marble lobby with its grand staircase, and the auditorium's Corinthian columns, balustrades and urns were all repaired and repainted to the 1921 design - a building that functions as downtown Dallas's memory of the vaudeville age. Practical notes: the theatre sits on Elm at Harwood, blocks from the DART rail's Pearl/Arts District station with paid lots surrounding; the balcony's front rows are the sightline value, the historic lobby bar queues early, and the calendar's mix - touring comics, tribute acts, film-with-orchestra, local dance companies - makes it the most democratic stage in the Dallas arts inventory.