Tampa Theatre in Hillsborough County, Florida

Photograph: TampaTheatre back pano01.jpg by Ebyabe · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Hillsborough County attraction

Tampa Theatre

Hillsborough County · Gulf Coast

A 1926 atmospheric movie palace in downtown Tampa, still showing films under a ceiling painted to look like a night sky.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Ground was broken on April 12, 1925, and the theater opened on October 15, 1926. John Eberson designed it as an atmospheric theater, a kind of movie palace meant to feel like an outdoor courtyard at night. The auditorium is dressed as a Mediterranean garden with statuary, flowers, gargoyles and balconies, and the ceiling is a dark vault set with small lights that stand in for stars, with clouds drifting across it. The exterior is Mediterranean Revival. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 3, 1978, and is a Tampa City Landmark. The City of Tampa owns the building and the Arts Council of Hillsborough County runs it as a nonprofit. Restorations came in 1976 and 1977, again in 1992 after a fire the year before, and in 2009, 2011 and 2012. A six million dollar renovation in 2017 replaced wiring, restored 1926 detail and reseated the auditorium, which brought capacity down from 1,446 to 1,252 and gave everyone more legroom. More than 700 events run here in a year: new films, classic films, concerts, tours and school programs. A volunteer organist plays the Mighty Wurlitzer before the evening film

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official Website ↗

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