:''See

Alcazar Theatre (1885) :''See also Alcazar Theatre (1911) and Alcazar Theatre (1976) for two other SF theaters of the same name.'' The Alcazar Theatre was a theatre at 116 O'Farrell Street, between Stockton and Powell, in San Francisco, California. Opened in 1885, th ...

and

Alcazar Theatre (1976) :''See also Alcazar Theatre (1885) and Alcazar Theatre (1911) for two earlier SF theaters.'' The Alcazar Theatre is a 511-seat theatre located at 650 Geary Street, San Francisco, California. The venue is host to many touring productions of Broadw ...

for two other SF theaters of the same name.'' The Alcazar Theatre was a 1,145 seat

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

located at 260 O'Farrell Street,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, 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 List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, between Mason and Powell, built in 1911 by architects Cunningham and Politeo for producer Fred Belasco, replacing the previous Alcazar Theatre one block to the east, which was destroyed in the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

fire. This venue soon became one of San Francisco's leading legitimate theatres offering a wide range of productions, and like its predecessor, also housed a popular resident stock company. It was purchased in 1922 by Thomas Wilkes for $125,000 from the estates of Belasko and M.E. Mayer. The resident stock company restructured after the theatre moved locations, and it included Viola Leach (in 1912;

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Viola Wheeler), Bertram Lytell (in 1912),

Louis Bennison Louis Bennison (October 17, 1884 – June 9, 1929) was an American stage and silent film actor, known for westerns. Biography Bennison was born on October 17, 1884, in Oakland, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley. ...

(in 1912), Will R. Walling (in 1912),

Charlie Ruggles Charles Sherman Ruggles (February 8, 1886 – December 23, 1970) was an American comic character actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films, often in mild-mannered and comic roles. He was also the e ...

(in 1912), and Evelyn Vaughan (in 1912). With the advent of the

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

, and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

of the 1930s, after remodeling, the Alcazar became the Uptown Theater, a secondary low-price

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 1936 and 1937, it housed the

Federal Theatre Project The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United ...

of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. In 1945, the theatre was used by the United Nations Peace Conference for some of its meetings, and afterwards reopened as the ''United Nations Theatre''. The building was renovated once again in 1952, renamed the ''Alcazar Theatre'', and again devoted to legitimate stage productions. The theatre was closed on December 31, 1961, and was torn down in March 1962 to make way for a parking lot for Hotel Stewart, which abutted it, but actually became the related Handlery Motor Inn.

References

Notes Bibliography *

External links

Cinema Treasures - Alcazar TheatreUnited Nations Theater (1947)
Theatres in the San Francisco Bay Area Demolished buildings and structures in San Francisco Works Progress Administration in California Event venues established in 1911 Former theatres in the United States Buildings and structures demolished in 1962 {{SanFrancisco-struct-stub