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Great Virginia Theaters

Barksdale Theatre - Hanover Tavern

License for a tavern at Hanover County Courthouse was first issued in 1733. The earliest surviving section of the present Tavern was built in 1791. Patrick Henry’s in-laws owned the Tavern for a time and it served as the area post office from the 1790s until 1911. In 1953, six actors, two children, a dog and two pigs moved into the historic ruin called Hanover Tavern. They lived upstairs, performed downstairs and served hearty meals in the rooms that fell in between.

The Lincoln Theatre - Marion, Virginia

One of only three Art Deco Mayan Revival theaters still in existence today, the Lincoln Theatre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Virginia Historic Landmark. One of the twenty-foot tall murals that grace the walls of the main auditorium is a depiction of British Gen. Cornwallis surrendering to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia painted by Smyth County native Lola Poston.

Carpenter Theatre - Richmond, Virginia

and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The massive 148,245 square-foot masterpiece was closed in 2004 for an extensive historic restoration and renovation costing $73,000,000 as part of the former Thalhimer’s Block of downtown Richmond. Reopened in 2009 with 1,760 seats and an auditorium ceiling that twinkles like the night sky, the Carpenter Theatre is now home to the Virginia Opera, the Richmond Symphony and the Richmond Ballet.

Blackfriars Playhouse - Staunton, Virginia

Home to the American Shakespeare Center, Blackfriars insists on the original staging conditions that the Bard, himself, would have used . . . a simple stage without elaborate sets and the audience sharing the same light as the actors. There are several replicas of The Globe Theatre, but only this 300-seat wooden theatre re-creates the first indoor theatre in the English-speaking world built by William Shakespeare and his colleagues on part of London's Blackfriars Monastery.

Wayside Theatre - Middletown, Virginia

The first know record of the property upon which this, the second oldest professional theatre in Virginia,stands was October 2, 1797 when it was sold to John and Elizabeth Campbell. This intimate theatre has been presenting live, Equity productions for forty nine years. Luring professional “A List” actors to your stage is easy when your theatre sets quaintly amidst the breath-taking Blue Ridge Mountains of the Shenandoah Valley.

Barter Theatre

is the official State Theater of Virginia

During the Great Depression, actor Robert Porterfield began the Barter Theatre Company in an Abingdon, Virginia church, built almost a hundred years beforehand. Admission was 40 cents or the equivalent amount of vegetables, dairy products, canned goods or livestock.

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