Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th Street | Times Square | built 1913
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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
Henry Herts gives the Longacre a neo-French Classic facade, his last known theater design
Henry B. Herts designed the Longacre in a neo-French Classic style, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission calls it his last known theater design. Five bays are framed by six fluted pilasters, and each pilaster has an ornately carved fountain at its base with a personification of drama above it. When it opened in 1913 the theater was praised for its innovative auditorium, its stage design and its fireproof steel, terra cotta and reinforced concrete construction.
“…applauded for its innovative auditorium, progressive stage design…”
- 1913
Harry Frazee builds the Longacre with his share of the profits from Madame Sherry
Producer Harry Frazee put his share of the roughly half-million-dollar profits from the musical Madame Sherry into the Longacre, which he built in 1913. The theater was foreclosed a year later. Frazee went on to buy the Boston Red Sox, sold players including Babe Ruth to the New York team, and had his last big Broadway success with No, No, Nanette in 1925.
- 1913
The Longacre opens with Are You a Crook?, which closes after twelve performances
Frazee opened the theater on May 1, 1913 with his own production of Are You a Crook?, a spoof of the crook melodramas that were fashionable then. It lasted just twelve performances. The first hit was Adele that August, and after several failures Frazee produced the farce A Pair of Sixes, which ran 207 performances in 1914.
“The Longacre opened its doors on May 1, 1913, with Frazee's production of Are You a Crook? ... it closed after only twelve performances.”
- 1916
William Collier's Nothing But the Truth gives Frazee his last and greatest hit at the Longacre
In 1916 William Collier played the comic lead in James Montgomery's Nothing But the Truth, which the landmark report calls Frazee's last and greatest production at the Longacre. The comedy later became a favorite of stock companies and was filmed several times. A worthy successor followed in Leave It to Jane, a college musical with a script by P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton and music by Jerome Kern.
- 1922
Ethel Barrymore leases the Longacre for three plays
Ethel Barrymore took a lease on the theater in 1922 for a series of three plays. She won rave reviews in Gerhart Hauptmann's tragedy Rose Bernd, but critics preferred Jane Cowl's Juliet that season to her own in Romeo and Juliet. She recovered in 1923 with 96 performances of The Laughing Lady.
- 1932
Blessed Event gives the Longacre a hit with a columnist modeled on Walter Winchell
After a long run of flops that included The Matriarch with Constance Collier in 1930 and Nikki with Fay Wray in 1931, the Longacre had a hit in February 1932 with Blessed Event. Roger Pryor played a vain Broadway columnist whom many took to be modeled on Walter Winchell.
“Roger Pryor starring as an egotistical Broadway columnist generally thought to have been modeled on Walter Winchell…”
- 1935
The Group Theatre brings three Clifford Odets plays to the Longacre
In March 1935 the Group Theatre took over the Longacre to present two short plays by Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty and Till the Day I Die, which reached a run of 135 performances. Odets and Elia Kazan were among the cast. In December the company returned with Odets's Paradise Lost, whose cast included Stella Adler, Morris Carnovsky and Sanford Meisner.
- 1944
Radio station WOR takes over the Longacre, where Broadway Talks Back originates
The comedy Three's a Family, with 497 performances, closed in 1944, and the Longacre was then leased to radio station WOR. Broadway Talks Back, a program in which drama critics and theater people argued about current productions, was one of the shows broadcast from there. Live theater returned in October 1953 with Dorothy Parker and Arnaud d'Usseau's Ladies of the Corridor.
- 1953
The Longacre returns to plays after nine and a half years as a broadcast studio
A shortage of Broadway houses in mid-1953 led the Shuberts to take the Longacre back from radio and television use after nine and a half years. The play that reopened the house in October 1953 was Ladies of the Corridor, by Dorothy Parker and Arnaud d'Usseau, and it did not succeed, nor did Jean Anouilh's Mademoiselle Colombe in 1954. Lillian Hellman's version of The Lark in 1955 did better, with Julie Harris, Boris Karloff and Christopher Plummer.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1961
Zero Mostel wins a Tony for Ionesco's Rhinoceros, then Purlie Victorious moves in
In 1961 Ionesco's Rhinoceros played at the Longacre, and Zero Mostel took a Tony for his work in it. Ossie Davis's Purlie Victorious came to the house from the Cort later that year and enjoyed a long, successful run. Van Heflin and Sidney Blackmer starred in A Case of Libel in 1963, a play drawn from a libel case involving Westbrook Pegler and Quentin Reynolds.
“In 1961, Zero Mostel won a Tony for his performance in Ionesco's…”
- 1980
Children of a Lesser God opens at the Longacre and runs for 887 performances
Phyllis Frelich and John Rubinstein starred in Children of a Lesser God, which opened at the Longacre in 1980 and played 887 performances. The house had a poor reputation by then, since William Goldman's 1969 book The Season had called it a flop theater and claimed its owners could only get weak shows to play there. The run followed the Fats Waller revue Ain't Misbehavin', which opened at the Longacre in 1978.
“Children of a Lesser God with Phyllis Frelich and John Rubinstein, which opened in 1980 and had 887 performances…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1987
The Longacre is reported empty for 201 of 208 weeks
The Longacre sat dark for months at a stretch during the 1980s, and the New York Times noted in 1987 that it had been empty for 201 of the previous 208 weeks. During one dark stretch in 1984 a video for The Rum Tum Tugger, from the musical Cats, was shot inside. The Shuberts renovated the house in the late 1980s, one step in a program to restore their Broadway theaters.
“…a 1987 New York Times article reported that the theater had been empty for 201 of the past 208 weeks…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2019
Weddings take place on the Longacre's stage, including one between two women during The Prom
During the run of the musical The Prom, which opened at the Longacre in 2018, two women were married on the theater's stage in 2019. The Longacre had hosted another stage wedding earlier, when Kelsey Grammer, a performer in La Cage aux Folles, married there in 2011.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Longacre TheatreWikipedia
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