Tennessee Theatre

The Tennessee Theatre will be the first thing to catch your eye when on Gay street. With a sign that literally lights up the entire road, and shows with a very personal and intimate feel to them, the Tennessee Theatre remains one of the coolest places downtown I have been to! While we learned a bit about the history of Gay Street on the tour we went on last semester, all I could really remember was the story of the big fire. So after walking past the Theatre today, I decided to use good ole Google. I learned that the theatre was originally a "motion picture palace" when it opened in 1928, hosting mostly silent shows, cartoons, and sometimes newsreels. The place also hosted magicians and acrobats, with one performance including a man on a live horse, who ran out of the theatre and into Gay Street and kept performing. For an even cooler fact, the most popular showing at the Theatre was Snow White, in 1938. The theatre kept showing movies until late 70s, and now host mostly live shows. I had the pleasure of watching a symphony there about 2 years ago, and it was so awesome. The sound in the theatre traveled nicely, and even being in the back row, I had a pretty nice view. In 2005, they renovated the place to look like it's original look, and I can only imagine how cool the place looked when it first opened, almost a century ago!