Casino Theatre

Casino Theatre (New York). The first theatre built in America specifically for the presentation of popular musicals, it opened in 1882 with a performance of Strauss's The Queen's Lace Handkerchief. It was the brainchild of Rudolph Aronson, who originally conceived it as a theatre with restaurants, gambling rooms, and New York's first roof garden playhouse. Designed by Francis Kimball and Thomas Wisebell in the Moorish style then in vogue, it stood at the southeast corner of Broadway and 39th Street. For many of its early years it was home to a distinguished ensemble of singers and comedians, although for its first decade it presented only imports. In 1894, however, it offered the first American revue, The Passing Show. Its summer roof garden was the site of the premiere of The Origin of the Cake Walk; or, Clorindy (1898), the first African‐American musical to be offered to a white Broadway audience. The house's beautiful chorus line was so famous that a 1900 musical, called The Casino Girl, was based on the imaginary adventures of one of its young ladies. By the turn of the century, the stock company had been disbanded and the Casino, taken over by the young Shuberts, was booked in the same way as other theatres. Among its hits were Florodora (1900), A Chinese Honeymoon (1902), Wildflower (1923), The Vagabond King (1925), and The Desert Song (1926). It was demolished in 1930.