Paramount Theatre and Building
- Architect
- B. Marcus Priteca
- City
- Seattle, WA
The Paramount Theatre opened on March 1, 1928, as the Seattle Theatre, a 3,000-seat movie palace designed by B. Marcus Priteca for an era when Seattle counted more than 50 such theaters and film was still silent. Built primarily to show film, with vaudeville a secondary use, it now seats 2,807 and is owned and operated by the nonprofit Seattle Theatre Group, which also runs the Moore Theatre in Belltown and the Neptune Theatre in the University District.
the building
One of fifty movie palaces. The Paramount opened in 1928 near the peak of the silent-film era, when Seattle had more than 50 movie palaces competing for downtown audiences, just before talking pictures arrived in 1927 and upended the business the theater was built for.
Built for film first. Despite its later reputation as a stage for Broadway musicals, concerts, and jazz, the Paramount was constructed expressly to show motion pictures, with vaudeville acts as a secondary use, a program later reversed as it became one of the busiest performing-arts venues in the region.
the architect
B. Marcus Priteca designed the Paramount as a movie palace during Seattle's 1920s boom in downtown theaters, an era that produced more than 50 such houses in the city before sound film changed the industry.
significance
The Paramount was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 9, 1974, and was later designated a Seattle City Landmark (#95) on February 13, 1995. It remains one of the busiest theaters in the region, operated by the nonprofit Seattle Theatre Group.
nearby
- Camlin Hotel
- Coliseum Theater
- Shafer Building/6th and Pine Building
- Medical Dental Building
- Times Square Building
- Northern Bank and Trust/Seaboard Building