This former movie theater has been converted to strictly live stage shows.
From the National Register application:
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"The Missouri Theater in downtown St. Joseph, Missouri, faces south and measures 76'6" (north and south) by 139' 9" (east and west). The two story Missouri Theater Building which abuts the theater on the east measures 63'6" (north and south) by 139'9" (east and west). These buildings are connected by a doorway at the theater's mezzanine level. Originally, additional connecting doors were located at orchestra and mezzanine levels.
The buff terra-cotta and red and blue enameled tile faced exterior of the Missouri Theater owes its character to Moorish prototypes. Its three-bayed primary facade is dominated by Art Deco piers, a central horse-shoe arch and other Moorish inspired polychrome and trefoil arched embellishment. The original marquees and arcuated parapet once emphasized the verticality of this design more than the present arrangement.
The Missouri Theater Building abuts the theater on the east. Its brick exterior is richly ornamented with varied motives in applied terra-cotta at the unaltered second floor level. The first floor level has been altered through the modernization of its storefronts.
This theater's interior offers an excellent example of a single balcony with mezzanine house of the "atmospheric" genre. The patron first enters the lobby, which is faced with variegated turquoise, buff, brown and maroon tiles, and proceeds into the auditorium where an exotic fantasy beneath the desert tent of Persian kings awaits. A plaster tent canopy is suspended from the ceiling, which evokes blue skies dotted with fleecy clouds. Surrounding embellishment includes double bull capitals on the engaged columns of the coves in those flanking the proscenium arch and on those adorning the elaborate pierced organ screens. In addition, pacing, winged human-headed lions in plaster relief, which flank the proscenium at orchestra level, heraldically disposed, winged horses along the frieze which surrounds the proscenium, the guilloche band which edges the canopy, the frieze of kneeling fbexes which runs beneath the organ screens and across the loge apron, the frieze of bowmen and charioteers which runs around the entire auditorium at cornice level and the stepped and crenellated parapet above all derive from motives commonly, found in the arts of ancient Persia, Babylon and Assyria. Specifically, the ideas for these designs were taken from stone sculpture and reliefs found at the ancient sites of Susa, Persepolis, Nimrud and Nineveh, dating from ca. 900 B.C. to ca. 500 B.C. They have been executed here in ornamental plaster and staff in colors of buff, pale green, pink and taupe. In addition murals depicting views of ancient Persepolis once adorned the cove walls but were over-painted at an unknown date.
The Missouri Theater was constructed as a movie house. Provision for stage shows was made, however, in its large stage, 52' wide by 28' deep by approximately 70' high, its five dressing rooms, its orchestra pit for a forty piece orchestra, a fly gallery with forty-four counterweighted lines and a resistance type dimmer board for control of house and stage lighting.
Alterations to the Missouri Theater include installation of a snack bar in the foyer (1947), loge and lobby renovation and installation of rocker seating (1960) and the removal of the original marquees, art glass and parapet decoration from the primary facade (1960's).
The Missouri Theater in St. Joseph, Missouri is significant as a prime example of a pre-Depression era movie palace with extravagant interior decoration of Near Eastern inspiration, designed by the noteworthy Midwestern theater architects, the Boiler Brothers of Kansas City, Missouri. It is important to the local citizenry and has been declared a local landmark by the city.
The Missouri Theater was constructed by Joseph Goldman, a local attorney and theater promoter, through the Capital Building Company of Lincoln, Nebraska. After construction began, Capital leased the property to Paramount-Pub!ix Theaters Corporation which completed the construction. The general contractor for this construction was the W.J. Assenmacher Company of Lincoln, Nebraska, a firm specializing in theater construction in the Midwest. The architects, the Boiler Brothers of Kansas City, were responsible for the designs of many Midwestern movie palaces including the Neo-Rococo Missouri Theater in Columbia, Missouri, the Neo-Baroque Lincoln Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska and the Spanish Colonial Texas Theater in San Antonio, Texas.
The adjoining Missouri Theater Building was constructed immediately after the completion of the theater, and both were ready for their grand opening on July 25, 1927. This opening was modest with only one newsreel, one short and a feature, "Rough House Rosie", starring Clara Bow. More elaborate shows with orchestral reviews and vaudeville acts were not included in the program until the fall of 1927.
From the time of its opening until the end of World War II, when St. Joseph's entertainment district moved to the eastern suburbs, the Missouri Theater was the prime first run house in town. It was closed as a movie house in 1970, but a succession of owners allowed the performing arts access to the theater. In 1976, Town Hall Center, Inc. was organized by a group interested in saving the building from possible demolition or conversion into a multi-cinema facility. This organization purchased the theater for $125,000 in October of the same year and was active in booking professional shows into the theater and securing local promoters to back them. Subsequently, the local citizenry voted for a bond issue of $750,000 for the purchase and renovation of the theater as a city center for the performing arts. The city took possession of the building on April 24, 1978 and the firm of Patty, Berkebile, Nelson and Associates was hired as renovation architects, with Lawhon Construction Company under contract for the work. The first phase of renovation will include a new roof, complete rewiring, installation of new seating, refinishing of the stage floor, restoration of the lobby and the primary facade to their original conditions, installation of a restroom for the handicapped and construction of a new concession stand on the mezzanine. Additional funds will be sought to provide a new 80 circuit dimmer board and patch panel, the rejuvenation of the fly gallery, the restoration of the adjoining storefronts on the Missouri Theater Building, a new sound system, carpeting and many other items and services. The theater restoration has been the impetus for the organization of a group of local citizens into a chapter of the American Theater Organ Society. The primary aim of this chapter is to secure a Wurlitzer organ to replace the $150,000 original which was removed from the theater in the 1960's."