A 1927 theater built to house a play about the CA missions. Now it’s haunted!

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 22, 2019

Eight years ago my dad had a bad accident and ended up in a rehabilitation center in the San Gabriel Mission District. I remember driving through the area to visit him, past all the Spanish revival buildings and adobe-style structures crammed into the area. By far the most beautiful – lovelier than the San Gabriel Mission Arcángel itself (see #43) – was the Mission Playhouse. “Someday, I’ll come back here,” I thought. Last month’s #greatLAwalk finally afforded me a reason to return. 

The Playhouse was completed in 1927 as a staging ground for The Mission Play, a three-hour epic recounting the history of the California missions. Its author? One John S. McGroarty, a journalist, poet and politician with lots of resources and some deep-pocketed friends. 

At the time of the Playhouse’s construction, The Mission Play had been playing for over a decade across from the San Gabriel Mission itself. (check out the photo below of a Mission Play-themed float at the 1922 Rose Parade). It kept going strong at its new home for an impressive 3,198 performances. But in late 1932, the Great Depression (and a failed attempt to bring it to Broadway) shuttered the show. 

Thankfully the building found new life as a movie theater; the dressing rooms were later turned into apartments to help with the WWII housing shortage. After the city of San Gabriel took it over in 1945, it became a theater for all sorts of entertainment, from B.B. King to Tony Bennett, Ricardo Montalban to Florence Henderson.

Designed by Arthur Burnett Benton to echo McGroarty’s favorite mission, San Antonio de Padua in Monterey, the Playhouse has one of those quintessential Mission Revival facades, complete with a stately belltower, tasteful tiling and just enough ornate detail to glorify the Creator, but not so much to offend anyone’s sensibilities. It resemble an actual Mission that hasn’t undergone 250 years of wear and tear. It really is something. 

Next time I visit, I’ll go inside and check out the tapestries (from the King of Spain!) and custom-carved ceiling and 95-year-old Wurlitzer. Maybe I’ll even spot the ghost of “Uncle John” McGroarty, rumored to haunt the theater.

Recommended Reading

+Mission Playhouse website

+Mission Playhouse @ LA Conservancy website