Qualla: Altria Theater

Altria Theater: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Packer1028, CC0. Walk past the corner of Monroe Park in downtown Richmond and you might think you have wandered into the wrong city. The Altria Theater - a vast Moorish Revival pile with horseshoe arches, ornate tilework, and a Shriners temple's worth of crescent-and-star ornament - looks like it was lifted whole from Marrakech and dropped on Virginia Commonwealth University's campus. The Shriners called it the Acca Temple Shrine when they opened it in 1927. Richmonders called it "the Mosque" for the next sixty-eight years. Inside it has held Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Sinatra, and Bruce Springsteen. Underneath it, the Richmond Police Department once kept a shooting range, a gymnasium, and a swimming pool. Under that, eventually, a lot of VCU students registered for classes. The building has worn more hats than any single American theater should reasonably wear.

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Image: Packer1028 | CC0

Altria Theater: The Shriners Build a Temple

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit user:Mentes, Public domain. The Acca Temple Shrine commissioned the building in the mid-1920s, hiring Marcellus E. Wright Sr. - working with Charles M. Robinson and Charles Custer Robinson - to design what they wanted: a vast Moorish Revival auditorium that would advertise the Shriners' fraternal exotic fan...

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Image: user:Mentes | Public domain

Altria Theater: The City Takes Over

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MonkeyBBGB, CC0. By 1940 the Shriners were in financial trouble and the City of Richmond bought the building. Much of the interior was converted to municipal use. The basement, in particular, became a strange parallel world: the Richmond Police Department opened office space, classrooms, a gymnas...

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Image: MonkeyBBGB | CC0

Altria Theater: The Stage Itself

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit user:Mentes, Public domain. The list of performers who have played the Altria reads like a museum exhibit on twentieth-century American popular music. Elvis Presley played the Mosque in 1956 and again in 1972 - the venue's most famous booking, with photographs and ticket stubs that collectors still chase. J...

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Image: user:Mentes | Public domain

Altria Theater: Two Renamings, One Corporate Sponsor

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MonkeyBBGB, CC0. In 1995, after a yearlong restoration, the city dropped the name "Mosque" - a name that had become awkward as Richmonders better understood what an actual mosque was - and renamed it the Landmark Theater. Then in February 2014, after Altria Group (the Richmond-based tobacco compa...

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Image: MonkeyBBGB | CC0

Altria Theater: The 2023 Shooting

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit user:Mentes, Public domain. On the evening of June 6, 2023, the Altria hosted the graduation ceremony for Huguenot High School. The students walked across the stage, families clapped, the city's high school year ended the way it should. In the parking lot afterward, a shooting broke out. Seven people were s...

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Image: user:Mentes | Public domain