SeattleChange
Moore Theatre is a 1,419-seat performing arts venue located at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Virginia Street, two blocks from Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. It is the oldest still-active theater in Seattle. The Moore hosts a mix of theatrical productions, musical concerts of many varieties, and lectures. It is currently operated by the Seattle Theatre Group, which also runs the 2,803-seat Paramount Theatre and the Neptune Theater.
Built for Seattle real estate developer James A. Moore in 1907 and designed by E. W. Houghton, the Moore was a lavish social venue for the Gilded Age elite of early 20th-century Seattle. The Moore Theatre and the adjoining Moore Hotel were designed partly to accommodate and entertain tourists visiting the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition; the Moore opened in time for the originally planned date of the Exposition in 1907.
The theater was initially operated by John Cort, later founder of a major Broadway theatre venue in New York. Excellent programming carried the Moore through the 1930s, but changes in entertainment gradually led to struggling to survive by the 1970s.
The Moore Theatre and Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Built of reinforced concrete (plus an enormous steel girder spanning the width of the house, carrying the weight of the balcony without the need for support columns) and faced with a façade of white ceramic tile and terra-cotta, the theater is a mix of elements of the Byzantine and Italianate styles. Like most theaters, the exterior is relatively plain and stylistically neutral compared to the extravagant interior.