Austin, Texas story
The Ritz: From Talkies to Punk to Comedy
Discover the wild history of Austin's Ritz Theater, which evolved from the city's first 'talkies' movie palace in 1929 to a 1980s punk venue, and finally into a modern comedy club.
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Imagine standing outside a building that has heard the very first synchronized voices of cinema, the raw thrash of eighties punk, and the roar of stand-up comedy. That is the Ritz at 320 East Sixth Street. When it opened on October 13, 1929, under movie theater owner J.J.
Hegman, it made history as Austin's first theater built specifically for the 'talkies'—movies with sound. But as the decades rolled on, the Ritz refused to stick to just one script. After its movie-palace era ended and it closed in 1964, the building transformed.
Over the years, it served as an adult theater, a pool hall, a bar, and, in the early 1980s, a wild punk rock venue. It kept reinventing itself until 2022, when Joe Rogan bought the building. After a major renovation, it reopened in March 2023 as the Comedy Mothership, a hot spot for stand-up comedy.
As you walk by today, you are looking at nearly a century of Austin’s shifting nightlife, all packed into a single, legendary room.
Updated June 2026