t the beginning of the 19th century, two inhabitants of São Luís decided to build theatre.
Eleutério Lopes da Silva Varela and Estêvão Gonçalves Braga were Portuguese; they were also rich and enterprising. They chose their site; in 1815, in the largo do Carmo, with the rua do Sol and the rua da Paz at the sides and the Travessa dos Sinos behind, construction began.
The two merchants soon found out that they would have to be enterprising, but bold too.
The largo do Carmo was dominated by the impressive church of Our Lady of Carmel; the Carmelite Fathers where in no way disposed to share the square with a house of secular entertainment.
Opposition grew to the point of beginning insuperable, and the anxiously awaited new building was embargoed.
After profuse debate and consequent delay, the increasingly complicated case was delegated to a special court for a final word.
This final word came from Father Antônio Ferreira Tezinho, whose verdict forbade for the Theatre to have doors opening onto the square - the largo do Carmo.
Thus they opened onto the rua do Sol, narrow and poorly ventilated; the building was cramped, difficult of access, and in due course lacked its own parking space.

Though the battle with the Carmelite Order has been lost, the bold and enterprising Portuguese did not desist from the war. On December 1st 1816, the commemorated the Restoration of the Portuguese Monarchy with a free spectacle for the people, who thus saw the inside of the still unfinished Theatre.
On June 1st 1817 it was officially opened under the name of the Union Theatre - in honour of the elevation of Brazil to the United Kingdom of Portugal and Algarve -, and a performance by the Dramatic Company of Lisbon enchanted the people of Maranhão.

Once open, the Teatro União (Union Theatre) had its time of prosperity, with successive performances by European companies to state the almost innate interest of the people of São Luís in culture and the arts. Decline followed, the consequence of poor administration and inadequate artistic direction; from 1841 to 1845, in a show of resistance, the Teatro União was rented out to the Maranhão Dramatic Society.
All attempts at survival were disappointed; faced with as ever-declining public, the house closed in 1848. It opened again four years later under the name of the São Luís Theatre. On the night of April 26th 1854, the first Masked Ball, a quite new event, caused interminable debate and tittle-tattle among the population.

A further fact, which took place in the same year in dressing room nº 1, went down in the history of São Luís. Extension of the stage has put the dressing room further back then it used to be, but it still has its marble plaque: "In this dressing room was born, on 21-6-1854, and twelve years later prepared herself for her debut in the role of the Ingénue in ´A Cigana de Paris´, the immortal actress Apollonia Pinto, Maranhão´s glory in Brazilian theatre, deceased at the Retiro dos Artistas, Rio de Janeiro, 24-11-1937. São Luís, 1940".

Under the government of Urbano Santos, in the second decade of this century, the Theatre changed its name once more, this time in honour of the Prince of Brazilian theatre critics, Arthur Azevedo, born in Caxias, state of Maranhão, in 1855, and the brother of Américo and Aluísio, who also enriched Brazilian literature.

When the cinema arrived, the Arthur Azevedo Theatre, like all the rest, watched its public wane almost to the point of disappearance. Instead, the inevitable search for novelty.
Inevitable, too, was its transformation into a cinema. Which is just what happened.
In 1932, the building was donated to the city by the government of S. da Mota; it returned to the state in 1965, under Newton Bello. In the same mandate, it passed to the Department of Culture of the State Secretariat for Education and Culture.

In recent years, the Arthur Azevedo Theatre has been variously rebuilt and restored, with greater or lesser care. In 1966, the Secretariat for Transport and Public Works finished restoration, and the stage was reequipped by expert Sílvio da Silva Couto. The Theatre reopened in 1968 with a performance of "Abraham and Sara" by amateur actors from the State of Maranhão.

In 1978, the Maranhão Cultural Foundation and the State government restored the air-conditioning and carried out painting and cleaning work.

At last, in 1993, after intensive research based on 19th century photographs, the Arthur Azevedo Theatre acquired once more a large part of its increasingly distant originality.