Saenger Theatre

History

The Saenger Theatre, 118 South Palafox Place, is a City of Pensacola performing-arts house designed by New Orleans architect Emile Weil in the Spanish Baroque style. Construction by the C. H. Turner Construction Company began in 1924 and cost about $500,000; bricks and iron from the hurricane-damaged Pensacola Opera House went into the building. It opened April 2, 1925, with Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, originally seating about 2,250. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 19, 1976. ABC Southeastern Theatres closed it in 1975 and gave it to the city; it reopened in 1981 with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. A later renovation, which the theatre’s site puts at $15 million and dates to 2009, left a listed capacity of 1,641. Legends Global manages it. (Wikipedia, Saenger Theatre (Pensacola, Florida); pensacolasaenger.com/about; Pensapedia)