Henry Miller's Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Stephen Sondheim Theatre, formerly Henry Miller's Theatre, is a Broadway theatre
located at 124 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and 6th Avenue, in Manhattan
's Theatre District.
-producer Henry Miller
. His financial backers were Elizabeth Milbank Anderson
, owner of the lot at 124 West 43rd, and Klaw & Erlanger. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. In 2007, the Roundabout Theatre Company
announced it would operate Henry Miller's Theatre as its third Broadway theater. The new theater opened in September 2009 with the Roundabout Theatre Company production of a revival of the musical Bye Bye Birdie.
In 2010, Dame Edna collaborated with cabaret
pianist and singer Michael Feinstein
for a two-person revue entitled "All About Me", based on the concept that both were rivals who were forced to work together for the show's sake. The show opened as the second production for the newly refurbished theater and was planned to run from March 18 through July 18, 2010 (with previews begininning on February 22). However, lukewarm reviews and low ticket sales led to the limited engagement being cut short and closing on April 4, 2010, after 27 previews and 20 regular performances.
On March 22, 2010, on his eightieth birthday, it was announced that Henry Miller's Theatre would be renamed to honour American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim
. The official unveiling and lighting of the marquee of the new Stephen Sondheim Theatre took place in a ceremony on September 15, 2010.
The first production to open at the new Stephen Sondheim Theatre was The Pee-wee Herman Show
, which played a limited ten-week engagement from October 26, 2010 through January 2, 2011, and was followed by a revival of Anything Goes
starring Sutton Foster
and Joel Grey
, which opened April 7, 2011.
Stephen Sondheim Theatre
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...
located at 124 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and 6th Avenue, in 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...
's Theatre District.
History
Designed in the Neo-classical style by architects Paul R. Allen and Ingalls & Hoffman, it was built by and named for actorActor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
-producer Henry Miller
Henry Miller (actor)
Henry Miller was an English-born American actor, director, theatrical producer and manager.Born as John Pegge in London, Miller's parents immigrated to Canada where he started acting as a juvenile. He became the leading man in Charles Frohman's stock company in New York City's Empire Theatre in 1893...
. His financial backers were Elizabeth Milbank Anderson
Elizabeth Milbank Anderson
Elizabeth Milbank Anderson , philanthropist and advocate for public health and women's education, was the daughter of Jeremiah Milbank , a successful commission merchant, manufacturer and investor, and Elizabeth Lake...
, owner of the lot at 124 West 43rd, and Klaw & Erlanger. 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.
The theatre had its first hit show with Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's The Vortex in 1926. Following Miller's death that year, the theater was managed by his son, Gilbert
Gilbert Miller
Gilbert Heron Miller was an American theatrical producer.Born in New York City, he was the son of English-born theatrical producer Henry Miller and Bijou Heron, a former child actress. Raised and educated in Europe, he returned home to follow in his father's footsteps and became a highly...
, 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. From the 1930s through the late 1960s, the theater enjoyed its golden years, with performances by Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
, Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
, Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, and Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton was an American actress, novelist, and early aviatrix.- Early life :Chatterton was born in New York City, on Christmas Eve 1892, to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton...
gracing its stage.
In 1968, it was sold to Seymour Durst
Seymour Durst
Seymour B. Durst was a New York real estate investor and developer. He was also a philanthropist and the inventor of the National Debt Clock....
. It showed feature films as the Park-Miller until it became a porn
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
theater called Avon-at-the-Hudson. In 1978, it was converted into the discotheque Xenon
Xenon (nightclub)
Xenon was a popular New York City nightclub. Xenon was a popular disco in Manhattan in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It was located at 124 West 43rd St in the former Henry Miller Theater which prior to Xenon had been renamed Avon-at-the-Hudson and was operating as a porn house. Xenon was the...
. 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
Cabaret (musical)
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
it was then housing. It was rechristened the Henry Miller when Urinetown
Urinetown
Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics...
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. 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. 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. In 2007, the Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...
announced it would operate Henry Miller's Theatre as its third Broadway theater. The new theater opened in September 2009 with the Roundabout Theatre Company production of a revival of the musical Bye Bye Birdie.
In 2010, Dame Edna collaborated with cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
pianist and singer Michael Feinstein
Michael Feinstein
Michael Jay Feinstein is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an interpreter of, and an anthropologist and archivist for, the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for celebrating American musical theatre songs...
for a two-person revue entitled "All About Me", based on the concept that both were rivals who were forced to work together for the show's sake. The show opened as the second production for the newly refurbished theater and was planned to run from March 18 through July 18, 2010 (with previews begininning on February 22). However, lukewarm reviews and low ticket sales led to the limited engagement being cut short and closing on April 4, 2010, after 27 previews and 20 regular performances.
On March 22, 2010, on his eightieth birthday, it was announced that Henry Miller's Theatre would be renamed to honour American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
. The official unveiling and lighting of the marquee of the new Stephen Sondheim Theatre took place in a ceremony on September 15, 2010.
The first production to open at the new Stephen Sondheim Theatre was The Pee-wee Herman Show
The Pee-wee Herman Show
The Pee-wee Herman Show is a stage show developed by Paul Reubens in 1980. It marks the first significant appearance of his comedic fictional character, Pee-wee Herman, five years before Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and six years before Pee-wee's Playhouse...
, which played a limited ten-week engagement from October 26, 2010 through January 2, 2011, and was followed by a revival of Anything Goes
Anything Goes
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
starring Sutton Foster
Sutton Foster
Sutton Lenore Foster is an American actress, singer and dancer. Foster has received two Tony Awards, in 2002 for her role of Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie and in 2011 for her role of Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes...
and Joel Grey
Joel Grey
Joel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
, which opened April 7, 2011.
Productions
Henry Miller's Theatre- 1919: La La LucilleLa La LucilleLa La Lucille is a musical with a book by Fred Jackson, primary lyrics by Arthur J. Jackson and Buddy DeSylva, additional lyrics by Lou Paley and Irving Caesar, and music by George Gershwin.-Plot overview:...
- 1929: Journey's EndJourney's EndJourney's End is a 1928 drama, the seventh of English playwright R. C. Sherriff. It was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London by the Incorporated Stage Society on 9 December 1928, starring a young Laurence Olivier, and soon moved to other West End theatres for a two-year run...
- 1936: The Country WifeThe Country WifeThe Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun...
- 1938: Our TownOur TownOur Town is a three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder. It is a character story about an average town's citizens in the early twentieth century as depicted through their everyday lives...
- 1948: Born YesterdayBorn YesterdayBorn Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin which premiered on Broadway in 1946, starring Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. The play was adapted intoa successful 1950 film of the same name.- Plot :...
- 1953: The Trip to BountifulThe Trip to BountifulThe Trip to Bountiful is a 1985 film starring Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford and Rebecca De Mornay. Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts. The movie was adapted by Horton Foote from his television play. The Trip to...
- 1954: Witness for the ProsecutionWitness for the Prosecution (play)Witness for the Prosecution is a play adapted by Agatha Christie based upon her short story titled "The Witness for the Prosecution". The play opened in London on October 28, 1953 at the Winter Garden Theatre...
- 1963: Enter LaughingEnter LaughingEnter Laughing is a play by Joseph Stein.Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Carl Reiner, it centers on the journey of young aspiring actor David Kolowitz as he tries to extricate himself from overly protective parents and two too many girlfriends, while struggling to meet the challenge of...
- 1965: The Subject Was RosesThe Subject Was RosesThe Subject Was Roses is a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1964 play written by Frank D. Gilroy, who also adapted the work in 1968 for film with the same title.- Background :...
- 1983: The RitzThe Ritz (play)The Ritz is a play by Terrence McNally. Actress Rita Moreno won a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Broadway production, which she and many others of the original cast reprised in a 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester....
- 1998: CabaretCabaret (musical)Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
- 2001: UrinetownUrinetownUrinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics...
- 2009: Bye Bye Birdie
- 2010: All About Me
Stephen Sondheim Theatre
- 2010: The Pee-wee Herman ShowThe Pee-wee Herman ShowThe Pee-wee Herman Show is a stage show developed by Paul Reubens in 1980. It marks the first significant appearance of his comedic fictional character, Pee-wee Herman, five years before Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and six years before Pee-wee's Playhouse...
- 2011-Present: Anything GoesAnything GoesAnything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
External links
- Stephen Sondheim Theatre at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
- Stephen Sondheim Theatre in the New York City Theater Guide