About the Warnors Theatre
A LEGACY ALMOST 100 YEARS IN THE MAKING
Welcome to Warnors Theatre, the crown jewel venue at Warnors Center for the Performing Arts.
Fresno’s iconic, 2100-seat theater was built in 1928, (for $1.5 million dollars!), by vaudeville theatre tycoon, Alexander Panatges. Pantages was a Greek immigrant who came to the US with very little and built an empire. His circuit of theatres around N. America featured both live performances and film. The Architect, Marcus B. Priteca, was another successful immigrant from Scotland. He designed the ornate building in an eclectic blend of Moorish, Spanish and Italian renaissance revival elements.
The “Pantages Theatre” operated for only 1 year before a Hollywood-noir style scandal ruined Pantages. The Warner Brothers company purchased most of the Pantages properties and changed them into Warner Brothers Theatres. After approximately 30 years the theatre was then purchased by Cinerama and the name was changed from “Warner Brothers Theatre” to “Warnors Theatre”, the name it has maintained to date.
In the 1970’s local business owner Frank Caglia purchased the building at auction from the City of Fresno, protecting the building from possible demolition. Over the next several decades the Caglia family maintained and safeguarded the Warnors building. In 1978, the building was designated as a registered historic building. It is currently on the federal, state, and local registries! The building is now owned and operated by Warnors Center for the Performing Arts, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
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