Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher Street | West Village | built 1868
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1913
Two 1868 brick houses and a rear stable are remade into a neighborhood movie house
The building began in 1868 as two three-story brick houses with a stable at the rear. In 1913 it was drastically remodeled into one of the neighborhood's early moving picture houses, and it kept that use until it became a theater. Further remodelings left the symmetrical three-story front, with a central entrance and a marquee, that it has today.
“…originally erected in 1868. It served as an early neighborhood moving picture house from 1913 until its conversion to a theater.”
- 1953
The Theatre de Lys opens with Maya, which lasts seven performances
The movie house became an off-Broadway playhouse in the early 1950s. The Theatre de Lys opened on June 9, 1953, with Maya, Simon Gantillon's play, with Kay Medford, Vivian Matalon and Susan Strasberg in the cast. It closed after only seven performances. The theater's breakthrough came the next year with The Threepenny Opera.
“…opening on June 9, 1953, with a production of Maya, a play by Simon Gantillon starring Kay Medford, Vivian Matalon, and Susan Strasberg. It closed after seven performances.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1954
The Threepenny Opera opens at the Theatre de Lys with Lotte Lenya and Bea Arthur
The Threepenny Opera opened on March 10, 1954, with a cast that included Lotte Lenya, Bea Arthur, John Astin, Charlotte Rae and Jo Sullivan. A booking by another production forced it to close after 96 performances. It reopened on September 20, 1955, and that second run lasted until 1961.
“The Threepenny Opera which opened March 10, 1954, with a cast that included Bea Arthur, John Astin, Lotte Lenya…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1955
Louis Schweitzer buys the Theatre de Lys as an anniversary present for Lucille Lortel
In 1955 the industrialist Louis Schweitzer bought the Theatre de Lys at 121 Christopher Street as a present for his wife, the actress and producer Lucille Lortel, on their 24th wedding anniversary. For her first production there, Lortel reopened the Threepenny Opera that she had staged at her White Barn Theatre in Connecticut. She went on to produce many other plays at the house in the following decades.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1955
The Threepenny Opera reopens and runs until 1961, setting an off-Broadway record
On September 20, 1955, a revival of The Threepenny Opera, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, opened at the Theatre de Lys with Lotte Lenya as Jenny Diver and Scott Merrill as Mack the Knife. The production ended on December 17, 1961, having played 2,611 performances across seven years. It was the only off-Broadway show of its day eligible for the Tony Awards.
Source: Village Preservation
- 1955
Louis Schweitzer gives his wife Lucille Lortel the Theater de Lys
In 1955 Louis Schweitzer gave his wife, Lucille Lortel, the Theater de Lys as a 24th wedding anniversary gift, according to her New York Times obituary. Schweitzer was a chemical engineer who made a fortune manufacturing cigarette papers and owned the radio station WBAI. The Theater de Lys then presented Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera, which ran seven years and, the paper said, put Off Broadway on the map.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1956
Lucille Lortel launches a 20-year matinee series as a laboratory for new work
Frustrated that The Threepenny Opera filled her theater for years, Lucille Lortel persuaded the American National Theater and Academy to back a matinee series described as a laboratory for innovation. It began in 1956 with a verse adaptation of Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country and ran for twenty years. Over time it offered Anna Sokolow's dance-drama Metamorphosis, Shakespeare in Harlem with Godfrey Cambridge, and performances by Richard Burton and Helen Hayes.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1969
Dames at Sea moves to the Theater de Lys for a long Off-Broadway run
After reopening at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre on December 20, 1968, the musical Dames at Sea transferred to the roomier Theater de Lys, opening there on April 22, 1969. It stayed on Christopher Street until it closed on May 10, 1970, having given 575 performances in all, counting its earlier engagement.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1981
The Theatre de Lys is renamed the Lucille Lortel Theatre during the run of Cloud Nine
On November 16, 1981, the Theatre de Lys took the name of its owner and producer, Lucille Lortel, while Cloud Nine, Caryl Churchill's play staged by Tommy Tune, was running there. The renaming came in the year of her 81st birthday. Tune won the Drama Desk Award for best director for that production.
“On November 16, 1981, during the run of Tommy Tune's production of Caryl Churchill's' Cloud Nine, for which Tune won the Drama Desk Award…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1981
Cloud 9 opens at Lucille Lortel's Theatre de Lys and runs more than two years
Caryl Churchill's play Cloud 9 opened at Lucille Lortel's Theatre de Lys on May 18, 1981, in a production directed by Tommy Tune, with incidental music by Maury Yeston. It ran until September 4, 1983, a run of more than two years in the Christopher Street house.
“…opened at Lucille Lortel's Theatre de Lys on 18 May 1981 and finished on 4 September 1983…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1990
The theater is completely refurbished and becomes one of the plushest Off-Broadway houses
The Lortel Theatre's own history page says the house was completely refurbished in 1990, establishing it as one of the most lavish Off-Broadway playhouses. It had been renamed for Lucille Lortel in 1981. In the 2000s, after her death, the theater came to be rented exclusively to not-for-profit theater companies, and it has operated continuously since 1955.
Source: lortel.org
- 1992
Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me plays, and Julie Harris makes her off-Broadway debut here
The 1992 season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre brought Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me, which Lortel produced and which won the 1993 Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding off-Broadway play. The same season the theater housed Circle Repertory Company's The Fiery Furnace, in which Julie Harris made her off-Broadway debut.
“…the theater was home to the Circle Repertory Company's production of The Fiery Furnace, starring Julie Harris in her Off-Broadway debut…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
Lucille Lortel unveils the Playwrights' Sidewalk with bronze stars outside the theater
On October 26, 1998, Lortel unveiled the Playwrights' Sidewalk in front of her theater, a lasting tribute to writers whose plays have been staged off-Broadway. Each year, as part of the Lucille Lortel Awards, one playwright is added, with a name cut into one of the bronze stars on the pavement.
“On October 26, 1998, Lortel unveiled the Playwrights' Sidewalk at the Lucille Lortel Theatre…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
After Lortel's death, the theater passes to her foundation and books only nonprofit productions
Lucille Lortel died on April 4, 1999, at the age of 98. Because she wanted the playhouse to outlive her, it passed in 1999 to the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation, which set a new rule of presenting only not-for-profit productions.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
Lucille Lortel, the Queen of Off Broadway, dies at 98
Lucille Lortel died in Manhattan in early April 1999, aged 98. The New York Times called her the Queen of Off Broadway and credited her with a career of more than seventy years. She had produced or co-produced some 500 plays, started the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut, in 1947, and received the Christopher Street theater from her husband in 1955.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2024
Oh, Mary! premieres Off-Broadway here before moving to Broadway
Oh, Mary!, directed by Sam Pinkleton, opened Off-Broadway at the Lortel on February 8, 2024, after previews starting January 26. It then transferred to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre, opening July 11, 2024, and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“…the play premiered Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on February 8, 2024, with previews beginning January 26, 2024…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Lucille Lortel TheatreWikipedia
- Then & Now photos: 121 Christopher StreetVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
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