Teatro del Soho Caixabank
The Teatro del Soho Caixabank is an initiative promoted by Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas to create a vibrant space for the performing arts in his home city.
The theatre, in the Soho district of the city just off the main Alamada, opened in its current guise in November 2019. It took over the space formerly occupied by the Alameda theatre (1961-2018) which had fallen into disuse and disrepair.
A varied past
The first instance of a venue being on this spot was when the Cine Pascualini was inaugurated on Alameda de Carlos Haës (now Calle Córdoba) in 1907. Its owner, Emilio Pascual Marcos, brought the first Hollywood feature films to the area.
However, this establishment was later destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. In the 1940s, it became the El Palacio de Cristal amusement park, and in the 1950s, it was an outdoor summer cinema called Terraza Alameda. Circus performances also took place here.
By 1961, the Alameda theatre was built here, opening with the opera “La serva padrona”. Over its sixty-year history, this was the only large private theatre in the city and it hosted a wide variety of shows, including comedy, drama, ballet, zarzuela, jazz and more.
It also served as one of the venues for various events such as the Theatre Festival, Malaga Carnival, FANCINE and the Malaga Spanish Film Festival.
The theatre hosted an average of 40 shows per year during this period, in addition to being home to two cinema screens. However, it eased its activities in May 2018.
Hollywood stardust
On 29 September 2017, actor Antonio Banderas announced the lease of the theatre to develop his theatrical project, a personal mission to create a space for the arts in the city he calls home.
With an initial investment of two million euros, the new theatre, renamed the Teatro del Soho, reopened with a run of the musical A Chorus Line, which Banderas himself starred in, to critical acclaim.
The venue also played host to the 2021 Goya Awards, with Banderas and María Casado as presenters.
Large auditorium
The revamped space features a large auditorium with 896 seats, a costume workshop, dining area and a bar.
To find out about the latest shows, click here.
Daryl is the co-founder of Malaga Guru. He is a copywriter, editor and translator who moved to Malaga a decade ago having first fallen in love with the city on his Erasmus year. After working for many years at local expat newspaper SUR in English, Daryl gained expert knowledge in life from the perspective of foreign residents and decided to co-found this site in 2016.