Lunt‐Fontanne Theatre (New York). The musical house, named after the celebrated acting couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, was built in 1910 by producer Charles Dillingham as the Globe Theatre. Architects Carrere and Hastings designed the Italian Renaissance–style theatre with an entrance on Broadway even though the structure sits on West 46th Street. (The entrance has since been moved closer to the lobby on the side street.) The Globe housed many musical hits until the Depression when Dillingham lost the property and it was turned into a movie house. When the playhouse reopened as a legitimate venue in 1958, it had a remodeled interior with an 18th‐century style, fewer seats, and a new name. Lunt and Fontanne starred in the first production, The Visit (1958), but it was their farewell appearance and much of the Lunt‐Fontanne's subsequent tenants have been large musicals.

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.