Multiple Domains, One Server/Database

[johnnycho]

My question requires a little background first:

I'm working on a Web project where there are four theatres owned by a single company, so not only will the four theatres each need their own Website (each with its own unique branding), but the umbrella company will need one as well.

I realize that one solution is to have 5 different domains pointing to 5 different Websites on 5 different servers with 5 different MySQL databases. But since all 5 Websites will share a lot of the same content, this solution is highly inefficient, not to mention costly.

I realize that another solution is to have the four theatres be subdirectories and/or subdomains of the umbrella company site. So:

http://www.umbrellacompany.com/
http://www.umbrellacompany.com/theatre1
http://www.umbrellacompany.com/theatre2
etc.

Or:
http://www.umbrellacompany.com
http://theatre1.umbrellacompany.com
http://theatre2.umbrellacompany.com
etc.

Here's the thing, though: Unique domains have already been purchased for each theatre. And from a marketing/branding/SEO standpoint -- and to keep the URLs more compact -- there's a lot of value in using those domains instead of the above solution. In other words:

http://www.theatre1.com/about

would be better than:

http://theatre1.umbrellacompany.com/about

or

http://www.umbrellacompany.com/theatre1/about

Here's my question:

Is there a way, possibly through mod_rewrite or some other clever solution, for me to have multiple domains -- and multiple URLS within those domains -- pointing to the same server? So for instance...

http://www.theatre1.com/
http://www.theatre1.com/about
http://www.theatre1.com/contact

would serve up pages from the same server and use the same MySQL database as:

http://www.theatre2.com/
http://www.theatre2.com/about
http://www.theatre2.com/contact

?

I look forward to reading the responses!

[pritaeas]

Yes, that's possible. I have a web host where I have one shared server, with multiple domains pointing to different folders (a sub-domain is still a folder). You should check with your host if and how this can to be done (I have cPanel and can just configure it there).

[knssanthan]

It can be hosted as a single domain with 5 different pages. But I dont beleive 5 different names can be hosted in a single domain name either.