Qualla: Pasadena Playhouse

Pasadena Playhouse: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JuanKenobi, CC BY-SA 3.0. George Bernard Shaw had a gift for the extravagant compliment, but when he dubbed Pasadena the 'Athens of the West,' he wasn't flattering the city's weather. He was talking about this theater — the Pasadena Playhouse — and the community fervor that built it. Actor-director Gilmor Brown started producing plays in a renovated burlesque house in 1916. Eight years later, Pasadena citizens raised their own funds to erect a proper home at 39 South El Molino Avenue, designed in Spanish Colonial Revival style by architect Elmer Grey. The result, completed in 1925, was a 686-seat auditorium that would become one of the most consequential theatrical institutions in the American West.

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Image: JuanKenobi | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pasadena Playhouse: Athens of the West

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Freed14, Public domain. The Playhouse came of age during an era when the American theater was sorting itself out — regional versus Broadway, commercial versus artistic, amateur versus professional. The Pasadena Playhouse managed to occupy several of these categories at once, and that tension gave it vit...

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Image: Freed14 | Public domain

Pasadena Playhouse: The School That Trained Hollywood

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1927, the Playhouse opened a school of theater arts that would eventually become an accredited college offering BFA and MFA degrees. The alumni list reads like a roll call of mid-century Hollywood: Raymond Burr, Victor Mature, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Gene Hackman, Du...

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Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pasadena Playhouse: Closure, Dormancy, and Return

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0. The city purchased the building in 1975, and after the acting school closed, the theater sat dormant for seventeen years. A real estate developer named David Houk relaunched it in 1986 as a touring vehicle — a house for shows that would play other California venues. Over the foll...

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Image: Ted Eytan | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pasadena Playhouse: Recognition and the Century Ahead

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff Lorch, Pasadena Playhouse, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2017, artistic director Sheldon Epps departed after twenty years and more than one hundred productions. His successor, Danny Feldman, arrived from the Labyrinth Theater Company in New York. In 2023, the Pasadena Playhouse received the Regional Theatre Tony Award at the 76th To...

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Image: Jeff Lorch, Pasadena Playhouse | CC BY-SA 4.0