Belcourt Theatre Est. 1925

The Belcourt's small room changed how the Grand Ole Opry sounded on the air. Because the hall was intimate, the Opry played each show to two separate audiences, so performers gave two fifteen-minute sets instead of one half hour, and that rhythm shaped the format the radio show still uses. The Hillsboro Theatre opened in 1925 with the largest stage in the city and D. W. Griffith's America on screen. A nonprofit bought it in 2007 for $1.4 million and reopened it in 2016 after seven months of renovation.

What the plaque says

Belcourt Theatre Est. 1925 On May 18, 1925 M. A. Lightman opened the Hillsboro Theatre for silent film, vaudeville, live concerts, and plays. Raffaelo Mattei, an image maker, of Gromignana, Italy, sculpted the stage arch. From 1926 to 1964, the stage housed the Little Theatre Guild, Children's Theatre, Community Playhouse, and Theatre Nashville. There, hundreds of plays developed the careers of Claude Jarman, Christine Tibbot. Sam Tarpley, and Delbert Mann. From 1935 to 1936, the Hillsboro Theatre also served as the Grand Ole Opry's first stage. Opry stars such as DeFord Bailey attracted thousands here each week, and the Opry developed its signature live format. The theatre was renamed Belcourt Cinema in 1964 to focus on film exhibition. In 1968 a new second screen made it the first twin cinema in Tennessee. By 1999 the Belcourt was in disrepair and struggling to find purpose. Because developers threatened to raze the building, community members formed a nonprofit organization, which is still operative as of 2024, to save the Belcourt Theatre. The Belcourt Theatre underwent major renovation and preservation projects that were completed in 2016.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 1.6 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.1 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• National Museum of African American Music — 2.1 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Ryman Auditorium — 2.1 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Hillsboro Theatre — steps away
• Roger Williams University — 0.2 mi
• George Peabody College for Teachers — 0.3 mi
• Battle of Nashville: 21st Avenue South — 0.4 mi