It is currently operated as a non-profit organization by the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA).

Originally opened in 1914 by The Shubert Organization, it was designed by Albert Swazey, a New York architect and built by the H.E.

The theatre reopened under city ownership in 1983, operated by the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA).

[2] For decades, the Shubert was used as a tryout venue for plays and musicals that, if successful, would then move on to Broadway — sometimes with an intermediate stop in Boston or Philadelphia.

[4][5] Notable actors and other performers who played the Shubert include Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Julie Andrews, the Marx Brothers, Sidney Poitier, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Gene Kelly, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Andy Griffith, Jane Fonda, James Earl Jones, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Liza Minnelli, Robert Guillaume, John Travolta, Anna Pavlova, Martha Graham, Beverly Sills, Efrem Zimbalist, Mandy Patinkin, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ethel Merman, Carol Burnett, Yul Brynner, Zero Mostel, James Garner, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jessica Tandy, Lee Remick, Nancy Reagan, Mary Martin, Rex Harrison, Julie Harris, Nanette Fabray, Vaslav Nijinsky, Ray Walston, Alfred Drake, Barbara Cook, Celeste Holm, Ezio Pinza, Gertrude Lawrence, John Raitt, Judy Holliday, Lisa Kirk, Sophie Tucker, and William Gaxton.