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Historic place

Capitol Theatre (Orpheum)

50 W 200 South, Salt Lake City, UT

Opened as the Orpheum Theatre in 1913, it became the Capitol in 1927 and now hosts Ballet West and Utah Opera.

📅 1913–present🏛️ TheaterStill here
Open on the mapSlide back to 1913

The story

The theater opened August 2, 1913, as the Orpheum Theatre, in Italian Renaissance Revival and Beaux Arts styles. It was renamed the Capitol Theatre in 1927 after the Orpheum Circuit dissolved. It seats 1,876 with reserved seating, and it is also known as the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre.

Fire damaged it in 1949, and an $8.6 million county bond paid for a major renovation in 1975. Later work included a $32 million project beginning in 2013 that added the adjacent Jessie Eccles Quinney Ballet Centre, and a six-month auditorium renovation in 2019 that replaced the main floor and restored the terracotta facade on the roof. The Capitol hosted the White Oak Dance Project in 1993 and served as a venue for the 2002 Olympic Arts Festival.

What's There Now

It is still a performing arts venue managed by Salt Lake County, used by Ballet West, Utah Opera and touring shows.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris produced the White Oak Dance Project that played there in 1993.
It remained active after the larger Eccles Theater opened on Main Street in 2016.
The 2019 renovation installed ADA-compliant seating.

Nearby history

Utah Theatre (Pantages)

144 S Main Street · 94 m away
A Pantages vaudeville house that became the Utah Theatre, was split in two in 1968, and was torn down in 2022 despite a

Crazy Goat Saloon

165 S West Temple · 95 m away
The Dead Goat renamed and reopened as a strip club, which led to a lawsuit with the LDS Church.

Walker Bank Building

175 S Main Street · 143 m away
The Walker brothers' bank headquarters topped the city in 1912 and still carries a rooftop weather beacon.

Lamb's Grill

169 S Main St · 148 m away
Utah's oldest restaurant started in Logan on Washington's birthday, then spent 78 years on Main Street before closing in

Dooly Block

109 W 200 South · 153 m away
A six-story Louis Sullivan office building, called his best work in the West, was torn down in 1964.

Kearns Building

132 S Main Street · 168 m away
Thomas Kearns's white terracotta office tower opened in 1911 and housed what was billed as the most beautiful buffet in

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Theatre_(Salt_Lake_City)