The Teatro Campoamor was built under the name of Teatro Albisu in 1870. The Teatro Albisu, located in the place of the current Centro Asturiano (Austrian Center; Fine Arts Museum of Havana), is one of the oldest theaters of the colonial time. It took its name from its owner José Albisu. It had about 1.750 seats, but the capacity could be increased up to 2.500 spectators. The place was dedicated mostly to zarzuelas. Later, when it became the property of José Azcue, its stage witnessed thousands of zarzuelas, such as the La Verbena de la Paloma (The Festival of Paloma), El Dominó Azul (The Blue Domino), El Jugar con Fuego (The Play with Fire), La Bruja (The Ring) and El Anillo de Hierro (The Iron Ring). The company was renewing itself frequently and actors that were idols of the public, were taking stage here.

In 1897 the Teatro Albisu was accused because of the musics of the zarzuelas Cádiz (music by Federico Chueca and Joaquín Valverde), and El Tambor de Granaderos (The Drom of the Grenadiers; music by Ruperto Chapí) that were staged in the theater. Towards the loss of the colonies of Cuba and Philippines the music of the marches of these zarzuelas were used as a second national anthem by the furious Spanish fundamentals, and the reason of the protests was that they were contributing to the hostile actions against the fight of the Cubans for independence. Ultimately in 1899, the theater was evacuated by the order of the Creole Pedro Perfecto Pascual Lacoste y Grave de Peralta, the first mayor of Havana after the colonial time, appointed by the American Governor.

When the theater was reopened in the first years of the 20th century, the spectators were divided in groups according to the artists. The rivalry between the artists led to the throw of the coins to the others by the supporters during the performance. This rivalry continued for years.

Those were the days of tenor Mateu and tenor Casañas, José Piquer, Luis Escribá and Miguel Villareal. Other stars of the theater were Concha Martínez, Consuelo Baillo, Blanca Matraz, Carlota Millanes, Paquita Calvo, María Conesa and Lolita Font.

In 1918 the theater was destroyed by a fire. Shortly after this unfortunate event another theater was built in the same lot and inaugurated under the name of Teatro Campoamor. The theater began to the new season with the zarzuelas of the Mexican actress and singer María Esperanza Bofill Ferrer. The Queen of the Operetta acquired her international fame after the triumphs on the stage of the Teatro Campoamor, and later built her own theater, the Gran Teatro Esperanza Iris, in her country. On the other hand, her company was the last great zarzuela company that visited Havana. In the last days of the Teatro Campoamor the place was destined also to film exhibitions. The Teatro Campoamor was a rather popular place with an intense program, but it had a short life, as it was destroyed by another fire. Thus, it continued its activities in the new building in the current localization. Subsequently, the nearby cafés disappeared, such as the Casino that was a meeting point for the journalists, comedians and the bohemians.

The new theatre was inaugurated in the coliseum of a cinematographic company in 1921, keeping the name Teatro Compeamor, although it was named Teatro Capitolio officially. Its owners were the businessmen Pablo Santos and Jesús Artigas that were also the owners of the Circus Popular Santos y Artigas, the most important circus in Cuba. The theater was built at a cost of 300.000 pesos of the time, but then it started to be used as a cinema. The habaneros watched the first sound film The Jazz Singer just 4 months after the premiere in the US. For this purpose, the Vitaphone audio system was installed in the building. That's why at that time, when a person had a vigorous voice, it was said to it:  "Hey, what you have is a vitaphone?”.

For more than four decades, it maintained to be one of the Havana’s leading venues for cinema, theater, music and poetry. It was a place where the singer Rita Montaner, the most popular performer of Cuba from the 1920s until her death in 1958, exhilarated the audience, starting with her first show here in 1924. The Argentinean singer and actress Libertad Lamarque, the Spanish copla singer, dancer and actress Lola Flores (María Dolores Flores Ruiz), the Argentinean actress, singer and dancer Magdelana Nile del Rio (stage name Imperio Argentina) were among the popular artists, staged in Teatro Campoamor.

In 1930s and 1940s the Afro-Cuban evenings were organized by Don Fernando Ortíz, the Cuban essayist, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture, and in 1936 the batá drums (double-headed drum shaped like an hourglass with one end larger than the other) of Pablo Roche were heard for the first time on the stage on any of these evenings. The Poetry Festival, directed by Juan Ramón Jiménez, the Spanish poem that won Nobel price in Literature in 1956, was another activity of the Teatro Campoamor that gathered many exhilarated spectators. The vedettes in vaudevilles like Angelita Castany and Blanquita Amaro, and the music of the sainetes, composed by Rodrigo Prats, Alicio Rico or Brienguer are unforgetable. The vedette is the main female artist of a show derived from cabaret. The sainete is a theatrical piece in one act, of a popular and traditional character, represented in Spain during the intermission or at the end of a performance. The vaudeville is a light, often comic theatrical piece, born in France, frequently combining pantomime, dialogue, dancing, and song.

The Campoamor was also a venue where important movies were run like Hamlet and Roma, Città Aperta (Open City), as well as the Mexican films and Argentine melodramas including the idol of tango Carlos Gardel. It became a custom to combine sainetes or vaudevilles with movies, so that the government obliged the theater owners to offer films together with live shows 

The beautiful horseshoe-shaped theatre of Havana, an emblem of Havana at night, was destroyed by a fire in 1966. An attempt was made in 1987 to restore the building, but it failed. Soon, the main entrance of the damaged building was invaded by some people that built their homes inside. Even a carpentry shop was opened inside of the building. For years the place was used as parking for bicycles, pedicabs and motorcycles. The building in ruins suffered a collapse in 2012, so that only the facade survived. Since that time the building has been abandoned. The Cuban cultural jewel stands in vivid contrast against the perfectly restored Capitol and the Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso nearby.