Asahi Theater

• Built: 1899

The Asahi Theater, or Asahi-za, was the first Japanese theater established in Honolulu. It was built on Beretania Street in Chinatown in 1899, and the following year a troupe formed to perform shinpa (modern theater) plays there. The theater was destroyed in a Chinatown fire the same year, but was rebuilt in 1908.

References

• Franklin Odo and Kazuko Sinoto, A Pictorial History of the Japanese in Hawaii 1885-1924, Bishop Museum (1985), 123.