WOODLAWN THEATRE
Woodlawn Theater is a historic landmarkr located in the charming city of San Antonio, that dates back to its original opening in 1945. The Woodlawn venue holds itself to a rich history earning the title of esteem and prestige.
The theatre was designed by John Eberson, an American architect famously known for his movie palace designs translated into atmospheric theatre fashion. In 1960, the world premiere of the legendary movie The Alamo was showcased at the Woodlawn Theater. At that time, the Woodlawn Theatre was the most elegant and unique movie theatre in the City of San Antonio.
Woodlawn Theater is the premiere historic local live performance theater venue in San Antonio. We are located in the heart of the historic Deco District of San Antonio, at 1920 Fredricksburg Road. Woodlawn Theatre was oringally designed by John Eberson and was opened in 1945 as an elegant venue for Hollywood films, with the premiere showing of the movie National Velvet starring Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor. In 1960, the world premiere of the famous movie The Alamo was hosted at the Woodlawn Theatre by John Wayne.
In 2012, Woodlawn Theatre Inc, LLC was named as a non-profit organization devoted to Bringing Broadway Home to San Antonio by providing quality, entertaining, educational, affordable, and contemporary programming for all ages. The organization was devoted to the arts by providing fresh and exciting programming, as well as to extending opportunities to professional and local artists to work in San Antonio, hence encouraging young professional San Antonio artists to return to and stay in the area.
Key aspects of their outreach included an active board of community leaders focused on renovating the Woodlawn Theater, bringing professional actors and directors to San Antonio to work with our artists, providing educational scholarships, reacquainting and exciting the community with the theater, maintaining and growing a year-round Children's Theater Program to educate and train the "stars" of tomorrow, today, and cultivating a Main Stage Program to entertain the San Antonio area with high quality contemporary theatrical programming.
In 2012, the landmark marquee of the Woodlawn Theatre was relit in full glory with the mutual financial help of City of San Antonio and personal funding from the current owner in the first time in 40 years, much to the delight of the entire community. That beautiful historic marquee still remains fully lit today with the original neon lighting designed by John Eberson.
Woodlawn Theater was designated as a City of San Antonio Historic Landmark in 2013 in a joint effort by the current building owner and the City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation, and is in the process of becoming a National Landmark.
In 2014, the space adjoining Woodlawn Theatre was renovated into a newly designed state of the art Black Box Theatre, which eventually became the home of the Classic Theatre of San Antonio, an award-winning professional theatre company. In 2022 and 2023, the second story of the Woodlawn Theatre Center, which adjoins the balcony area of Woodlawn Theater and was the previous home of the famous Woodlawn Bowling Lanes, has been completed remodeled and renovated into the Deco Ballroom and Event Center.
Today, the stars still shine bright at the Woodlawn Theatre and the Woodlawn Theatre Center. Come visit us soon!
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Grand Opening
August 17, 1945 — Grand Opening of San Antonio’s newest “De Luxe Suburban Theatre”, the Woodlawn Theatre, with the showing of National Velvet starring Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor.
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The Alamo
In 1960, the legendary Academy-Award winner John Wayne hosted the world premiere of his movie, The Alamo.
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Pink Floyd
In 1986, the Woodlawn Theatre premiered the famous laser lightshow tribute to Pink Floyd.
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Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers rocked the house at the Woodlawn Theatre in 1987.
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Today...
Still a home for the performance arts today, The Woodlawn Theatre was honored with the official title 'City of San Antonio Historic Structure' in 2013.
The Historic Woodlawn Theatre is the marquee landmark in our beautiful Woodlawn Theatre Center, located in the heart of the Deco District of San Antonio. The theater was designed by the famous Art Deco architect John Eberson, who designed numerous Art Deco styled theatres across the nation during this time. Importantly to San Antonio history, Mr. Eberson also designed the Majestic Theatre (the only other building designed by him in San Antonio), that opened in 1929, and the Woodlawn Theatre was one of the first theatres in San Antonio to allow people of color to attend movie theatre showings.
The Woodlawn Theater took longer to build and open than originally planned, with the construction having taken place during the final stages of WWII. However, it did finally open, on August 17, 1945, in grandiose fashion with the premiere showing of National Velvet.
There is so much rich history in this building. The most interesting things we’ve learned in the past 15 years or so in caring for this building are from people that used to live in the neighborhood, or still do, or used to visit the building when they were young, and come by to share their stories from times past.
Today we continue to build new memories at the Woodlawn Theatre. We will continue to build this page, and hope to dedicate an entire section whole area of this site to stories from the past.
If you have stories to share about the Woodlawn Theatre or this beautiful building (remember Woodlawn Bowling Lanes? The big fire? and so much more!) , please email us at contact@woodlawntheatrecenter.com. We can’t wait to hear from you and share your memories with others!
For now, thank you for visiting, and Enjoy the Show!