Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Booth Theatre

 
American Theater Guide: Booth Theatres

Booth Theatres (New York). Two beloved theatres named after Edwin Booth have flourished in Manhattan. The first Booth Theatre was built in 1869 on 23rd Street to present Shakespeare productions by the renowned actor it was named after. It was a very advanced theatre, designed by the famous New York architect James Renwick Jr., and featured extensive backstage space, room for scene and costume shops, and an early sprinkler system. Booth gave several sparkling performances there and managed the house himself for a few years, then it changed management several times until it was turned into a department store in 1883, which was later demolished. The second and current Booth Theatre on West 45th Street is a small but much‐treasured house designed by Henry B. Herts. It opened in 1913 with its attached sister theatre the Sam S. Shubert on Shubert Alley. Producer Winthrop Ames presented small productions in the elegant, Italian Renaissance style that seated only 785, and over the years the Shubert‐owned theatre has become a favorite house for intimate pieces.

Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
Wikipedia: Booth Theatre
Top
Booth Theatre
Booththeatre2.jpg
Address
222 West 45th Street
City
Country USA
Designation Broadway theatre
Architect Henry B. Herts
Owned by The Shubert Organization
Capacity 766
Opened October 16, 1913
shubertorganization.com/theatres/booth.asp
The Booth Theatre in 2006
The Booth Theatre, showing The Year of Magical Thinking starring Vanessa Redgrave, 2007
Booth Theatre (right) and Shubert Theatre (left), back-to-back in Shubert Alley

The Booth Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street (George Abbott Way) in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.

Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade. Named in honor of famed 19th-century American actor Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, the theater's 783-seat auditorium was intended to provide an intimate setting for dramatic and comedy plays. It opened on October 16, 1913 with Arnold Bennett's play The Great Adventure.

The venue was the second New York City theatre to bear this name. The first was built by Booth himself in 1869 on the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue (see picture, below).

The Booth Theatre appeared in The West Wing episode Posse Comitatus. It hosted a fictitous charity performance of War of the Roses which an equally fictitious President Bartlet attended during the assassination of the Qumari Defence Minister Abdul ibn Shareef. [1]

Notable productions

References

  1. ^ http://www.newsaic.com/ftvww65i.html FootnoteTV The West Wing Posse Comitatus

External links

Original Booth Theatre building, circa 1880s


 
 

 

Copyrights:

American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Booth Theatre" Read more