Crescent Theater

The Crescent Theater is a single-screen room on Dauphin Street in downtown Mobile that has been putting on shows since 1885, when it opened as a vaudeville and burlesque house. It turned to silent films in 1912, spent decades as a restaurant and other things entirely, and came back as a cinema after a renovation in 2008. These days it is run by Laugh Mobile as what the theater itself calls "the only full time(ish) comedy club in the city" — an intimate house that keeps one foot in standup and one in its own movie-palace history. Touring headliners come through most weeks: Brian Posehn, Trae Crowder, Steve Hofstetter, Gabriel Rutledge, Darren Knight and Shelly Belly are all on the current calendar. Around them sits a busy in-house programme — Double Feature Comedy Night, Stagner's Showcase, Nighttime with Carson Taylor, Comedy Shorts, Laughs For Vets — plus the weekly Wednesday double of Crescent Comedy Workshop, a low-pressure writing room for anyone who has ever been the funny friend, and Crescent Comedy Chaos, sixteen comics doing five minutes each. The screen still earns its keep with "Black and Gold on the Movie Screen" watch parties and the occasional live-scored silent film. Tickets are sold only through the theater's own site — the club warns explicitly against resale listings elsewhere. Street parking on Dauphin is free after 5pm, with pay lots a block up on St. Francis, though cars left on Dauphin after 11pm on Friday and Saturday get towed.