Lyric Theatre (Kansas City, Missouri)

The Lyric Theatre was a theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. The 4+1⁄2-story structure designed by Owen Saylor and Payson opened on December 18, 1926, as the Ararat Shrine Temple. It cost the Shriners $1 million and had a seating capacity of 3,000. It was designed to imitate the Temple of Vesta and was to be part of a complex that also consisted of the Deramus Building and the American Hereford Building on other corners of the intersection at 10th and Central. In 1939 Union Trust of St. Louis foreclosed on the $600,000 note on the building. During World War II it was sold to the American Red Cross as a blood collection center. It was used as a legitimate theatre called the Playhouse and later the Victoria. Midland Broadcasting bought the building in 1947 for its KMBC radio broadcasts (and later KMBC-TV) In 1957 Durwood Organization took it over and converted for Todd-AO and later Cinerama movies and named it the Capri Theatre. KMBC continued to broadcast from beneath the stage. In 1970 the Lyric Opera of Kansas City signed a lease to perform at the theatre. In 1974 Metromedia, then owners of KMBC-TV, took over management of the building although the live arts continued to be performed. In 1982 The Hearst Corporation, KMBC-TV's new owners, acquired the building. In 1989 a piece of plaster fell from the building during a rehearsal of the Kansas City Symphony. Hea

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