Twenty years before the Apollo, Black America's biggest stage was on T Street in Washington. The Howard Theatre at 620 T Street NW opened on August 22, 1910 - the nation's first full-sized theatre built for Black audiences and performers - a 1,200-seat Italian Renaissance and Spanish Baroque house by J. Edward Storck, with crystal chandeliers, marble staircases, eight proscenium boxes and dressing rooms for a hundred performers. The theatre showcased vaudeville, musicals, road shows and circuses through the 1920s, closed after the 1929 crash and spent two years as a church, then reopened in 1931 with hometown hero Duke Ellington packing the house for a week - the start of its golden era. Under manager Shep Allen, "D.C.'s Dean of Show Biz," the Howard anchored the circuit alongside the Apollo, Philadelphia's Uptown and Baltimore's Royal: Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Lionel Hampton played up to eight shows a day, and the amateur nights famously launched Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstine. Desegregation, neighborhood decline and the 1968 riots drained the audience, and the theatre closed in 1970; a 1975 reopening with Redd Foxx lasted only weeks, and the National Register-listed building spent three decades mostly dark. The rescue took a 29-million-dollar public-private restoration - including 12 million dollars in city grants and tax financing - that broke ground in September 2010, rebuilt the 1910 facade and grandeur, and reopened the theatre on April 9, 2012. The modern room runs a flexible supper-club format: around 650 seated with table service or up to 1,100 standing, hosting R&B, hip-hop, jazz, go-go, gospel brunches and comedy - programming that keeps faith with the theatre's lineage. A statue of Ellington stands outside the doors on T Street, and the Howard's significance needs no plaque: this is the room that proved a century ago that Black entertainment could fill a first-class house, and it is still doing so.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 620 T Street Northwest, Washington, DC, United States, 20001

Website: https://thehowardtheatre.com

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 1100

Opening Date: 22/08/1910

Serves Food

Accessible