Cleveland’s historic Variety Theatre opened on November 24, 1927.

The theatre was built by 3 businessmen – Sam Stecker, Meyer Fine and Abe Kramer, all of whom ran the Variety Amusement Company. The architectural style of this grand theatre is Spanish Gothic, and was designed by Cleveland-based architect Nicola Petti – the same architect who designed the Cedar Lee Theatre. The Variety had a total of 1,980 seats, and included an orchestra pit and dressing rooms for vaudeville shows, and a large screen for motion pictures. The first motion pictures shown when the theatre had opened in 1927 were called talkies. Talkies were sound films, where sound was synchronized to the picture. Talkies had debuted commercially in October 1927 with the first feature film “The Jazz Singer.” With this, these films began replacing silent films. Though having their commercial success in 1927, talkies had been around since 1923 in various shorts.

The theatre had cost just around $2 million to build, which is a large chunk of money even today. In fact, with inflation, that 1927 price of $2 million would equal just under $29 million today.

The theatre was operated under control of the Variety Amusement Company for only two short years before being sold to Warner Brothers in 1929. Warner Brothers would then run the theatre until 1954, before selling it to Wargo Realty. The Community Circuit Theaters Co. were the following owners, and ran the theatre until 1976. It would then switch hands once more, and be purchased by Russell Koz, who would run it as a second-run theater. Koz transitioned the theater in the 1980s to begin hosting live music. Many popular bands had performed at the Variety over these years, including acts such as Slayer, Metallica, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, R.E.M., Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Motorhead . There’s a story that tells of Motorhead playing so loud that they had caused plaster to crack and fall from the ceiling. At 130 decibels, they had broken the previous record set by The Who at 126 decibels for loudest rock concert. After numerous complaints about noise from the neighborhood, the theatre was eventually ordered to be shut down. The Variety did however have one extra bit of life being used as a wrestling gym called the Cleveland Wrestleplex, but was closed shortly after in the late 1980s.

In 2002, local councilwoman Dona Brady joined with Gretchen Moore, the commercial director at Westown Community Development Corporation, beginning plans to restore the theatre, which had then sat abandoned for somewhere close to 14 years. They established the Friends of the Historic Variety Theatre – a nonprofit group dedicated to restoring the theatre. After 7 years, the group was able to purchase the building on June 12, 2009 through grants and other funding. On September 24, 2016 the marquee was placed back up onto the building, and is now lit every night, setting the streets aglow.

The entire restoration project will cost around $15 million to complete. Once completed, the Variety Theatre will continue to live its life as an entertainment venue, hosting performances and events of all kinds

Watch a video about this theatre below:

If you would like to help support my work and this blog so that I can continue providing content here for you to check out, you can help in a huge way by pre-ordering a copy of my upcoming abandoned Ohio book “Ohio’s Forgotten History”

Pre-orders are currently available here – “Ohio’s Forgotten History”

The theatre will not be part of the first book, but this will be a three part series, and it will be in the second. Make sure you grab this first one so you can have all 3! It’s always nice to have a collection!

Thank you all!

You can also check out their Facebook page at Friends of the Historic Variety Theatre

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