Woodlawn Theatre

The Woodlawn Theatre opened on August 17, 1945, at 1920 Fredericksburg Road, northwest of downtown San Antonio, with Elizabeth Taylor in "National Velvet." The San Antonio Current and UTSA's student paper The Paisano both credit the design to John Eberson, the architect of the city's Majestic Theatre. It was a single-screen neighborhood house in the area now known as the Deco District.

In October 1960 the Woodlawn hosted the world premiere of "The Alamo," the John Wayne epic about the 1836 battle, with Wayne as host. A Cinema Treasures list of the film's roadshow engagements puts the Woodlawn first, on October 24, 1960, a day before Dallas and two days before Los Angeles, and records a 26-week run in Todd-AO. The theater's artistic director told KSAT in 2019 that the owners bought a new projector for the film and that the mayor turned out with Wayne and other stars.

In the 1970s Santikos Theatres ran the Woodlawn and twinned it; The Paisano reports that John Santikos turned the balcony into a second auditorium. Cinema Treasures records that the theater closed for restoration on April 21, 1983, reopened that June 3, and showed its last movie on March 25, 1985. Through the 1980s it doubled as a concert hall for touring bands such as Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Live theater took over in 2006, when Jonathan Pennington leased the building for Amphisphere Productions. Kurt and Sherry Wehner bought it in 2012 and ran it as the nonprofit Woodlawn Theatre, Inc., which staged musicals there; the long-dark neon sign was relit the same year. That company left in early 2024, renamed itself Wonder Theater and moved to the former Santikos Bijou at Wonderland of the Americas. In April 2025 Shane Quade and Keith LaRosa reopened the building as Woodlawn Comedy, a 985-seat comedy room, after a renovation they said cost close to $1 million.