Helen Hayes Theatre (45th St.)
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| Broadway Theatre | |
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| Helen Hayes Theatre | |
|---|---|
| Address | 240 West 44th Stree |
| Capacity | 299 (Originally) |
| Date Opened | 1912 |
The Helen Hayes Theatre was located on 240 West 44th Street, between Broadway and 8th Avenue New York, N.Y. Designed by Ingalls & Hoffman, and built by Winthrop Ames. It opened on 12 March 1912. It was renowned for its tiny Colonial-style lobby with fireplace and its lack of an orchestra pit.
[edit] History
In 1912, producer Winthrop Ames built the littlest theater on Broadway. At first it had a mere 299 seats, the idea being to have a space to present more experimental works. Ames had limited success in doing this, and financial troubles forced him to add more seats and eventually to begin leasing the theater to other producers.
When the theater opened, under the name Folies- Bergère, its vibrant terra cotta facade of gold, turquoise and old ivory instantly made it “the brightest, most eye-catching theater along the Rialto,” Nicholas van Hoogstraten wrote in his 1991 book, Lost Broadway Theaters.
For seven decades, generations of theatergoers strode under its marquee to see luminaries like Bela Lugosi in Dracula and Audrey Hepburn in Gigi. In the 1940s and '50s, the theatre stopped presenting legit shows altogether and spent several years as The New York Times Hall and later as a TV studio. It once again became a part of the Great White Way in 1963, spent a brief year as the Winthrop Ames Theatre in 1964 while housing The Subject Was Roses, and then reverted back to being the Little Theatre once more.
Sadly in 1982, the Helen Hayes Theatre, as it had been renamed in 1955 to honor the doyenne of the American stage, it was razed along with two other vintage Broadway theaters, The Morosco Theatre and the Bijou Theatre, both from 1917, to make way for the Marriott Marquis Hotel.
[edit] Productions
Among the more recent popular shows which have played there are Torch Song Trilogy, Prelude to a Kiss, By Jeeves, and Golda's Balcony.
