Austin: Paramount Theatre

Harry Houdini once had a hole cut in the ceiling for an escape act. More than a century later, it’s still there — a small, strange landmark inside one of Texas’s grandest old theaters.

The Paramount Theatre at 713 Congress Avenue opened October 11, 1915, as the Majestic Theatre, built by Ernest Nalle and designed by Chicago architect John Eberson in the Neoclassical Revival style — an early, important work from an architect who would go on to design hundreds of American movie palaces nationwide. Through the vaudeville era of 1915 to 1930, the Majestic hosted the Marx Brothers, John Philip Sousa, the Metropolitan Opera, Mae West, and Orson Welles, and Houdini’s 1916 escape act reportedly required cutting a hole straight through the ceiling — a hole that survives to this day, alongside the theater’s original hand-painted fire curtain, one of only a handful still hanging in any American theater. Karl Hoblitzelle renamed the venue the Paramount Theatre in 1930, adding carpeting, upholstered seating, and an illuminated blade sign out front.

Saved by a Nonprofit

By the 1960s and ’70s, television and suburban multiplexes had pushed the Paramount into decline, and a 1963 facade renovation stripped away its original blade sign entirely. In the mid-1970s, local stakeholders — including philanthropist Roberta Crenshaw, who donated her ownership stake — formed the nonprofit now known as the Austin Theatre Alliance to restore and run the building; the Texas Historical Commission dedicated a state historical marker in 1977, the same year a major restoration began with a $1.85 million federal grant. The blade sign was finally recreated and relit on September 23, 2015, for the theater’s 100th anniversary.

Decades of Legendary Bookings

In the decades since, the Paramount has anchored the Austin Film Festival and the Moontower Comedy Festival, hosted touring concerts from Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Lucinda Williams, Tony Bennett, Patti LaBelle, and David Byrne, and even welcomed a sitting president in 2014. It operates as a nonprofit under the Austin Theatre Alliance, which also runs the neighboring State Theatre, and its educational programs — student matinees, summer camps, workshops — have introduced generations of young Austinites to live performance.

Currently Closed for Restoration

As of this writing, the theater is closed: it shut its doors on June 15, 2026, for an approximately 11-month, $22.8 million restoration — part of a joint $55.4 million “Shine On” campaign with the State Theatre — with a targeted reopening around April 2027. The project will replace all seating and restore historic plaster, paint, and chandeliers while preserving character-defining features like the fire curtain and the Houdini hole, continuing a stewardship that has kept the Paramount alive since the Austin Theatre Alliance first stepped in half a century ago — much as Bass Concert Hall anchors a different corner of Austin’s performing-arts landscape today.

I’ve been here ♪

I’ve been here ♪