Since 1858 Thalian Hall has served as both city hall and theatre in Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina. Built in 1858, this two-story, five-bay, stuccoed brick building blends restrained Classical Revival and flamboyant Late Victorian design elements. The front facade is dominated by a tetrastyle Corinthian order portico that gives the building its distinctive, civic presence.
For more than a century and a half it has served the public: today the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts hosts professional, regional, and local shows and remains one of the most heavily utilized historic theatres in the United States. The building has been under the management of the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. since 1963, and its importance was recognized when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. You are standing in the Wilmington Historic District, surrounded by the history that helped define this block of town.
Listen for the life that still fills the theatre each season, and let your eye travel over the stuccoed bays, the classical cornices, and the Corinthian columns. Picture the tetrastyle Corinthian portico crowning the five-bay facade above this block.