Henry Miller Theatre (New York). Actor‐manager Henry Miller built this medium‐sized theatre on West 43rd Street to house plays that he produced, and it soon became a favorite venue for both American and British classics. Harry Creighton Ingalls and Paul R. Allen designed the Georgian‐style playhouse that seated only 700 but still had a balcony because Miller, remembering his days as a youth who was unable to afford anything but cheap balcony seats, insisted that his theatre have one. The playhouse opened in 1918 and stayed in the family for decades, Miller's son Gilbert continuing in his father's footsteps. The theatre ceased to present legit productions in 1966, was turned into a movie house and soon reverted to a porno palace. In 1978 it became a disco club named Xenon, then a dance hall called Shout! While still in this nightclub configuration, the Henry Miller returned to legit status with the 1998 revival of Cabaret. When that popular production transferred to Studio 54, the playhouse was restored into a more traditional theatre arrangement with 635 seats and hosted another musical hit, Urinetown (2001).
Henry Miller's Theatre
| American Theater Guide: Henry Miller Theatre |
| Wikipedia: Henry Miller's Theatre |
Henry Miller's Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 124 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and 6th Avenue, in Manhattan's Theatre District.
Designed in the Neo-classical style by architects Paul R. Allen and Ingalls & Hoffman, it was built by and named for actor-producer Henry Miller. His financial backers were Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, owner of the lot at 124 West 43rd, and Klaw & Erlanger.[1] The original theatre had 950 seats. It opened on April 1, 1918 with the play The Fountain of Youth. It was the first air-conditioned theater in Manhattan.[citation needed]
The theatre had its first hit show with Noel Coward's The Vortex in 1926. Following Miller's death that year, the theater was managed by his son, Gilbert, who bought the Klaw & Erlanger interest and paid 25% of the gross take of each play he produced to the Milbank Memorial Fund, Anderson's legatee.[2] From the 1930s through the late 1960s, the theater enjoyed its golden years, with performances by Helen Hayes, Leslie Howard, Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, and Ruth Chatterton gracing its stage.
In 1968, it was sold to Seymour Durst. It showed feature films as the Park-Miller until it became a porn theater called Avon-at-the-Hudson. In 1978, it was converted into the discotheque Xenon. Twenty years later, it returned to legitimate use as the Kit Kat Club, borrowing its name from the club featured in the popular revival of Cabaret it was then housing. It was rechristened the Henry Miller when Urinetown opened in 2001.
The theater was closed in 2004, the interior demolished and subsequently rebuilt by the Durst Organization to make way for the 57-story Bank of America Tower.[3] Its neo-Georgian facade, landmarked by the city, remains, and includes a 1,055-seat theater designed by New York firm of Cook+Fox Architects within the new structure.[4] With bank facilities located above, architects were forced to design and build the new theater underground. This makes Henry Miller's Theatre one of only two subterranean houses on Broadway. [5] In 2007, the Roundabout Theatre Company announced it would operate Henry Miller's Theatre as its third Broadway theater.[6] The new theater opened in September 2009 with the Roundabout Theatre Company production of a revival of the musical Bye Bye Birdie.[7]
Contents |
Productions
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This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
- 1919: La La Lucille
- 1929: Journey's End
- 1936: The Country Wife
- 1938: Our Town
- 1948: Born Yesterday
- 1953: The Trip to Bountiful
- 1954: Witness for the Prosecution
- 1963: Enter Laughing
- 1965: The Subject Was Roses
- 1983: The Ritz
- 2001: Urinetown
- 2009: Bye Bye Birdie
Notes
- ^ The New York Times June 30, 1921 p.7; The New Yorker June 5, 1943 p.30
- ^ The New Yorker, June 5, 1943, p.30
- ^ Simonson, Robert. "Henry Miller gets a new theatre" Playbill.com November 28, 2009
- ^ Healy, Patrick. "White Way Gets a 'Green' Theater"The New York Times, May 3, 2009
- ^ Simonson, Robert. "Henry Miller Gets A New Theatre pg. 2" Playbill.com, November 28, 2009
- ^ Robertson, Campbell. "Roundabout to Fill a Brand-New 89-Year-Old Theater", The New York Times, May 10, 2007
- ^ Jones, Kenneth. "Broadway's Newest Theatre, Henry Miller's, Will Open in September With Bye Bye Birdie", playbill.com, May 3, 2009
References
Henderson, Mary C.,The City and the Theatre (2004), Watson-Guptill, ISBN 0823006379, pp. 244-245
External links
- Henry Miller Theatre at the Internet Broadway Database
- Henry Miller's Theatre in the New York City Theater Guide
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