Cleveland Ohio ~ Historic Ohio Theatre ~ Playhouse Square

The Ohio Theatre is a theater on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, section of Playhouse Square. The theater was built by Marcus Loew’s Loew’s Ohio Theatres company. It was designed by Thomas W. Lamb in the Italian Renaissance style, and was intended to present legitimate plays. The theater opened on Feb 14, 1921, with 1,338 seats. The foyer featured three murals depicting the story of Venus, and the balcony contained paintings of Arcadia. Throughout the 1920s, the Ohio had a stock company and hosted traveling Broadway plays.

In 1935, the theater was redecorated in an Art Deco style and transformed into a supper club called the Mayfair Australian Casino. The owners hoped to turn the establishment into an actual Australian Casino, but since gambling was not allowed in Ohio, the Mayfair closed in 1936. The Loew’s Theatres chain reopened the Ohio in 1943 as a first-run movie theater