Variety Arts Theatre.
Photograph: Hunter Kerhart | Variety Arts Theatre.

Variety Arts Theatre

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Time Out says

Opened in May of 1924 as the Friday Morning Club, this historical LA theater has been through many iterations—as The Playhouse (with speakers such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Dorothy Parker), the Times Theater and the Figueroa Playhouse. In 1977, William Larsen (co-founder of the Magic Castle) bought and renamed the building as the Variety Arts Theatre. It was home to vaudeville-type performers until shows trickled to a stop and the building was sold to a management company that now rents the space out for special events.

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940 S Figueroa St
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What’s on

What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem

This display of film and video art, billed as “a sweeping odyssey into the depths of human experience,” will take over all six stories of the abandoned, historic Variety Arts Theater in Downtown L.A. (the theater served as the setting for this past Halloween’s immersive haunt Delusion, and the expansive space was as impressive as the production itself). Over a century of visual storytelling will be explored, blurring the line between visual art and cinema. The contemporary video works by artists including Marina Abramović, Doug Aitken, Chris Burden, Cyprien Gaillard, Arthur Jafa and Precious Okoyomon—juxtaposed with cinematic works by the likes of Walt Disney and Georges Méliès—come from the time-based art collection of the Germany-based Julia Stoschek Foundation.
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