Los Angeles’ Variety Arts / Figueroa Playhouse
Get spooked all this month at the haunted house created in four floors of the 1924 Variety Arts Theatre building. At one time the main theatre (with about 1,000 seats) was called the Figueroa Playhouse. For about 12 years the complex was home to magician Milt Larsen’s Society for the Preservation of Variety Arts. That group sought to preserve materials for the variety part of show biz. Displayed were such things as Ed Wynn, Earl Carroll, and Flo Ziegfeld’s personal memorabilia with such items as posters, scripts and playbills. Famous members included Cary Grant, Buddy Ebsen, Milton Berle and George Burns, among others. Milt Larsen sold the building and moved to the Magic Castle in Hollywood.
“A narrow staircase leads to the underground dressing rooms of an 88-year-old Downtown theatre . . . For the Downtown haunted house the theatre becomes the former home of a demented magician . . .”
Ted Gooding shares this link and reminds us that the 1998 Conclave / Theatre Tour which he organized saw this complex :
