Longacre Theatre
Coordinates: 40°45′37.5″N 73°59′08.73″W / 40.760417°N 73.9857583°W
 Boeing-Boeing, 2008 | |
| Address |
220 West 48th Street Manhattan, New York City United States |
|---|---|
| Owner | The Shubert Organization |
| Designation | Broadway theatre |
| Capacity | 1091 |
| Production | Living on Love |
| Opened | 1913 |
| Years active | 1913-present |
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 220 West 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.
History
Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts in 1912, the theatre was named for Longacre Square, the original name for Times Square. The French neo-classical building was constructed by impresario Harry Frazee, better remembered as the owner of the Boston Red Sox who, needing money for his theatrical ventures, sold Babe Ruth's contract to the New York Yankees. A curse allegedly lingered on the theatre as a result, and there was a time in which superstitious producers avoided it for fear they would be backing a flop, as noted by William Goldman in his book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway. Despite the rumor, a large number of performers who have appeared on stage here have taken home a Tony Award for their efforts.
The Longacre's first show was a production of the William Hurlbut-Frances Whitehouse comedy Are You a Crook?, which opened on May 1, 1913. With the exception of its use as a radio and television studio in the mid-1940s to early 1950s, the theatre has operated as a legitimate Broadway venue.
Notable productions
- 1913: Adele (musical)
- 1917: The P.G. Wodehouse-Jerome Kern-Guy Bolton musical Leave It to Jane stars Edith Hallor, Robert Pitkin and Oscar Shaw
- 1927: The Command to Love opened in September with Basil Rathbone as the Marquis de Saint-Lac
- 1935: Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty stars the playwright, Lee J. Cobb, and Elia Kazan
- 1955: Julie Harris plays Joan of Arc in Jean Anouilh's The Lark, for which she wins her second Best Actress Tony Award. Also in the cast are Christopher Plummer, Boris Karlof, and Theodore Bikel.
- 1961: Zero Mostel wins a Tony for changing into a beast before the audience's eyes in Ionesco's The Rhinoceros. Supporting him are Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Morris Carnovsky, and Jean Stapleton.
- 1966: Hal Holbrook's performance in his landmark one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight, earns him a Tony.
- 1975: The cast of Terrence McNally's riotous The Ritz includes Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller, F. Murray Abraham, George Dzundza, and Rita Moreno, who wins a Tony. The comedy runs for 398 performances.
- 1976: Julie Harris earns her fifth Tony for her portrayal of Emily Dickinson in William Luce's The Belle of Amherst.
- 1977: David Rabe's The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel wins Al Pacino a Tony.
- 1978: Ain't Misbehavin' runs for 1604 performances and wins Tony Awards for Best Musical, Richard Maltby, Jr.'s direction, and Nell Carter as featured musical actress.
- 1980: John Rubinstein and Phyllis Frelich score Best Actor and Actress Tonys for their performances in Mark Medoff's Children of a Lesser God.
- 1985: A revival of Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, with Jim Dale and Stockard Channing, earns her a Best Actress Tony.
- 1993: Singer Tony Bennett takes to the stage for a series of concerts.
- 1994: A revival of Medea wins Diana Rigg a Tony.
- 1997: Horton Foote's The Young Man From Atlanta wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
- 2001: Two revivals at opposite ends of the theatrical spectrum - the highly dramatic Judgment at Nuremberg and Herb Gardner's comedy A Thousand Clowns - each enjoy a limited run.
- 2002: Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam features works by African-American writers.
- 2005: Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner tackle the roles of George and Martha in a revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Irwin takes home a Tony.
- 2007: A revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, starring Liev Schreiber.
- 2008: A revival of Boeing Boeing starring Christine Baranski, Mark Rylance, and Bradley Whitford. Mark Rylance wins the Tony for best actor.
- 2009: Dance show Burn the Floor, playing a limited 12-week engagement, which has since been extended to February 24, 2010.
- 2010: La Cage aux Folles was revived with a transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory production starring Douglas Hodge as Albin and Kelsey Grammer as Georges. It opened on April 18, 2010 and was later nominated for 11 Tony Awards, winning 3 for Best Musical Revival, Best Actor in a Musical (Douglas Hodge), and Best Direction of a Musical (Terry Johnson)
- 2011: Chinglish, a play by Tony Award Winning playwright David Henry Hwang about an American business man desperate to launch a new enterprise in China.
- 2012: Magic/Bird, a play by Eric Simonson about NBA legends Larry Bird and Magic Johnson starting from their college days leading to their personal rivalry and long-running friendship. Also, the short-lived The Performers.
- 2013: First Date the Musical
- 2014: Of Mice and Men
- 2014: You Can't Take It With You
Box Office Record
The second Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles in 2010 achieved the box office record for the Longacre Theatre. The production grossed $687,824.90 over eight performances, for the week ending June 20, 2010.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ BWW News Desk , broadwayworld.com
- Parker, John, ed. (1947). Who's Who in the Theatre (10th ed.). London. p. 1184.