Detailed Information

Loew’s State originally sat 3,400. The huge vaudeville and movie theatre was designed in an Italian Renaissance style by theatre architect Thomas W. Lamb, and was the flagship of the Ohio branch of the Loew’s Theatres chain.

The theatre has an entrance on the main thoroughfare of Euclid Avenue however the theatre building is located behind other Euclid Avenue buildings and therefore reached using a 320-foot (98m) set of three lobbies. It has been claimed that this is the longest lobby in the world serving a single theatre.

In early 1967 the theatre was converted for exhibiting films in Cinerama, the extreme widescreen process popular at the time. On 10th January 1967, The Cleveland Press reported that the State Theatre was “closed for remodeling”. By mid-January a “Gala Premiere” was being advertised for Thursday 9th February, alongside the new name Loew’s State Cinerama Theatre. By the end of January the opening had changed into a Gala Invitational Premiere one day earlier on Wednesday 8th February. The reopening attraction was Grand Prix (1966)  starring James Garner and Eve Marie Saint.

On 9th February 1969 the theatre closed due to financial troubles. In 1973, the newly formed Playhouse Square Foundation obtained a long-term lease on the theatre. In 1977, Cuyahoga County bought the Loew’s Building, containing both the Ohio and State theatres, leasing them back to the Foundation. Restoration began in 1979 and was augmented with a new stagehouse. The theatre reopened in June 1984 with a seating capacity of 3,200. The opening program was the Metropolitan Opera presenting Jon Vickers in Benjamin Britten’s classic opera “Peter Grimes”.

The State Theatre was renamed KeyBank State Theatre in 2017 in honor of a $10 million gift to Playhouse Square, which the theatre forms an integral part of.