Music Box Theatre
Encyclopedia
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
theatre located at 239 West 45th Street (George Abbott Way
George Abbott Way
George Abbott Way is a section of West 45th Street northwest of Times Square in New York City, named for famed Broadway producer and director George Abbott...
) in midtown-Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
The once most aptly named theater on Broadway, the intimate Music Box was designed by architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
C. Howard Crane
C. Howard Crane
Charles Howard Crane was an American architect.Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Crane established a practice in Detroit, Michigan early in the 20th Century. Like Thomas W. Lamb and John Eberson, Crane specialized in the design of movie palaces in North American...
and constructed by composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
and producer Sam H. Harris
Sam Harris (playwright)
Sam H. Harris was a Broadway producer and theater owner.-Career:After a stint as a cough drop salesman and boxing manager, Harris's first production was Theodore Kremer's The Evil That Men Do co-produced with Al Woods in 1903. Harris found success in 1904 as the producing partner of George M...
specifically to house Berlin's famed Music Box Revue
Music Box Revue
Music Box Revue was a musical theatre revue with music by Irving Berlin. Featuring contributions from a number of writers including Robert Benchley, it debuted at the Music Box Theatre in 1921, where it ran for 440 performances.-References:...
s. It opened in 1921 and hosted a new musical production every year until 1925, when it presented its first play, Cradle Snatchers, starring Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
. The following year, Chicago, the Maurine Dallas Watkins
Maurine Dallas Watkins
Maurine Dallas Watkins was an American journalist and playwright.She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Crawfordsville High School, followed by five colleges...
play that served as the basis for the hit musical, opened here. It housed a string of hits for the playwriting team of George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...
and Moss Hart
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...
, from their first collaboration Once in a Lifetime
Once in a Lifetime (play)
Once in a Lifetime is a play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the first of eight on which they collaborated in the 1930s.-Plot:The satirical comedy focuses on the effect talking pictures have on the entertainment industry...
to their hit play The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a comedy in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert...
. Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
and George
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
also presented shows here.
In the 1950s, playwright William Inge
William Inge
William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize...
found a home at the Music Box, where he had success with Picnic
Picnic (play)
Picnic is a 1953 play by William Inge. The play premiered at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway on 19 February 1953 in a Theatre Guild production, directed by Joshua Logan, which ran for 477 performances....
, Bus Stop
Bus Stop (play)
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by William Inge. The 1956 film is only loosely based upon it.-Characters:Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements. It is set in a diner in rural Kansas, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take...
, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It won the Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film in 1960.-Plot:...
.
One of the smaller Broadway houses, with a seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of 860, the theater was co-owned by Berlin's estate and the Shubert Organization until the latter assumed full ownership in 2007. Its box seats are notable for being unusually large and round, and Dame Edna lovingly described them as "ashtrays" during her successful run there. The lobby features a plaque and wall exhibit commemorating its rich history.
The Brown Theatre
Brown Theatre
The Brown Theatre is a restored theatre dating back to 1925 that seats approximately 1,400 patrons in Louisville, Kentucky. The theatre still stands today and remains a testament to the glory days of Louisville’s theatre district.-History:...
in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
is modeled after the Music Box Theatre.
Other notable productions
- Of Thee I SingOf Thee I SingOf Thee I Sing is a musical with a score by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The musical lampoons American politics; the story concerns John P. Wintergreen, who runs for President of the United States on the "love" platform...
(1931) - Dinner at EightDinner at EightDinner at Eight may refer to:* Dinner at Eight , a 1932 Broadway play written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.* Dinner at Eight , a 1933 adaptation...
(1932) - As Thousands CheerAs Thousands CheerAs Thousands Cheer is a revue with a book by Moss Hart and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, first performed in 1933. The revue contained satirical sketches and witty or poignant musical numbers, several of which became standards, including "Heat Wave", "Easter Parade" and "Harlem on my Mind." ...
(1933) - Merrily We Roll Along (1934)
- Stage DoorStage DoorStage Door is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier,...
(1936) - Of Mice and MenOf Mice and MenOf Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California, USA....
(1937) - I Remember MamaI Remember MamaI Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the fictionalized memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on the Hanson family, a loving family of Norwegian immigrants living on Steiner Street in San Francisco in the 1910s.Produced by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein...
(1944) - Summer and SmokeSummer and SmokeSummer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
(1948) - Lost in the StarsLost in the StarsLost in the Stars is a musical with book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson and music by Kurt Weill, based on the novel Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton...
(1949) - The Solid Gold CadillacThe Solid Gold CadillacThe Solid Gold Cadillac is a 1956 film directed by Richard Quine and written by Abe Burrows, Howard Teichmann and George S. Kaufman. It was adapted from the hit Broadway play of the same name by Teichmann and Kaufman, in which they pillory big business and corrupt businessmen...
(1954) - Separate TablesSeparate TablesSeparate Tables is the collective name of two one-act plays written by Sir Terence Rattigan, both taking place in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, a seaside town on the south coast of England. The first play, entitled "Table by the Window", focuses on the troubled relationship between a...
(1956) - Five Finger ExerciseFive Finger ExerciseFive Finger Exercise is a 1962 drama film made by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Daniel Mann and produced by Frederick Brisson from a screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on the play by Peter Shaffer....
(1959) - Any WednesdayAny WednesdayAny Wednesday is a 1966 comedy film directed by Robert Ellis Miller, starring Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, and Dean Jones. The story centers around a Manhattan woman who is trying to decide between two suitors on the day of her 30th birthday.On August 18, 2009, Warner Brothers released the movie...
(1964) - Wait Until DarkWait Until DarkWait Until Dark is a play by Frederick Knott.-Synopsis:Susy Hendrix is a blind Greenwich Village housewife who becomes the target of three con-men searching for the heroin hidden in a doll, which her husband Sam innocently transported from Canada as a favor to a woman who has since been murdered...
(1966) - The HomecomingThe HomecomingThe Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...
(1967) - SleuthSleuth (play)Sleuth is a 1970 play written by Anthony Shaffer. The play is set in the Wiltshire, England manor house of Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer. His home reflects Wyke's obsession with the inventions and deceptions of fiction and his fascination with games and game-playing...
(1970) - Absurd Person SingularAbsurd Person SingularAbsurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples...
(1974) - Side By Side By SondheimSide By Side By SondheimSide by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...
(1977) - DeathtrapDeathtrap (play)Deathtrap is a play by Ira Levin in 1978 which encompasses many plot twists and is essentially a play within a play. It is a play in two acts with one set and five characters. It holds the record for the longest running comedy-thriller on Broadway and was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best...
(1978) - Agnes of GodAgnes of GodAgnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation...
(1982)
- Les Liaisons DangereusesLes liaisons dangereuses (play)Les liaisons dangereuses is a play by Christopher Hampton adapted from the 1782 novel of the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The plot focuses on the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, rivals who use sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation, all the while enjoying their...
(1987) - A Few Good Men (1989)
- Blood Brothers (1993)
- State FairState Fair (musical)State Fair is a musical with a book by Tom Briggs and Louis Mattioli, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and music by Richard Rodgers.Rodgers and Hammerstein originally adapted the Phil Stong novel of the same name for a 1945 movie musical, which was remade in 1962...
(1996) - The Diary of Anne Frank (1997)
- AmadeusAmadeusAmadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
(1999 revival) - The Dinner PartyThe Dinner Party (play)The Dinner Party is an original one-act play written by Neil Simon. It tells the story of six unknowing guests who are invited to a private dining room in a first-rate restaurant in Paris. Two things are apparent: they are three divorced couples, and one of them has set up the party.The play opened...
(2000) - Fortune's FoolFortune's FoolFortune's Fool is a play by Ivan Turgenev.-Plot:The setting is a vast Russian country estate where the resident aristocrats and their many servants are jolted out of their tranquility by the arrival of someone from the city, down-on-his-luck Vassily Semyonitch Kuzovkin, whose own property has been...
(2002) - Cat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...
(2003) - In My Life (2005)
- Festen (2006)
- The Vertical HourThe Vertical HourThe Vertical Hour is a play by David Hare. The play addresses the relationship of characters with opposing views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and also explores psychological tension between public lives and private lives. The play received its world premiere at the Music Box Theater on Broadway,...
(2006) - DeuceDeuce (play)Deuce is a play by Terrence McNally. The Broadway production, directed by Michael Blakemore, starred Angela Lansbury as blue collar Leona Mullen and Marian Seldes as well-bred Midge Barker, two former successful tennis partners, now retired, who reunite to be honored at a women's quarterfinals...
; The Farnsworth InventionThe Farnsworth InventionThe Farnsworth Invention is a stage play by Aaron Sorkin adapted from an unproduced screenplay about Philo Farnsworth's invention of the television and David Sarnoff, the RCA president who stole the design.- Screenplay :...
(2007) - August: Osage CountyAugust: Osage CountyAugust: Osage County is a darkly comedic play by Tracy Letts. It was the recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on 28 June 2007, and closed on 26 August 2007. Its Broadway debut was at the Imperial Theater on 4 December 2007 and...
(2008 transfer from the Imperial Theatre) - Superior DonutsSuperior DonutsSuperior Donuts is a play by American playwright Tracy Letts. Its world premiere was staged by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 2008, and it premiered on Broadway in 2009.-Synopsis:...
(2009) - Lend Me A TenorLend Me a TenorLend Me a Tenor is a comedy by Ken Ludwig. The play was produced on both the West End and Broadway . Although it received seven Tony Award nominations, it won only one, for Best Actor. A Broadway revival opened in 2010. Lend Me a Tenor has been translated into sixteen languages and produced in...
(2010) - La BêteLa BêteLa Bête is a comedy by American playwright, David Hirson. Written in rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter, the Molière-inspired story, set in 17th century France, pits dignified, stuffy Elomire, the head of the royal court-sponsored theatre troupe, against the foppish, frivolous street entertainer...
(2010) - JerusalemJerusalem (play)Jerusalem is a play by Jez Butterworth that opened at the downstairs theatre of the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009. The production starred Mark Rylance as Johnny 'Rooster' Byron and Mackenzie Crook as Ginger. After receiving rave reviews its run was extended. In January 2010 it transferred...
(2011) - Private LivesPrivate LivesPrivate Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
(2011)