Pensacola's Saenger Theatre

Pensacola’s 82-year-old Saenger Theatre will undergo a $14-million renovation starting in late summer. Among the plans: Adding star dressing rooms, expanding the orchestra pit and overhauling systems. Performing groups will use other venues during the 13-month renovation; Pensacola Symphony Orchestra is staging its 2007-08 season at a church. The theater, opened in 1925, is one of four Saenger Theatre sites still operating among dozens established in the South beginning in 1912 by Saenger Amusement Co. of Shreveport, La.; others are in Mobile, Ala., and Biloxi and Hattiesburg, Miss. The Pensacola building was donated to the city in 1975. Concerned citizens prevented it from being turned into a parking lot, and it reopened in 1981 as a performing arts theater, home to the symphony, opera, ballet, stage plays and visiting celebrity entertainers.