New York City Landmark Guide

Booth Theater

222 W 45th Street
between 7th & 8th Avenues

Completed 1913

Architect Henry B Herts

Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theater as a back-to-back pair, sharing Venetian Renaissance exterior decoration. Named in honor of famed 19th-century American actor Edwin Booth, the theaters 783-seat interior was meant as an intimate setting for finely-crafted drama

It's appropriate that the Booth's first production was Arthur Bennett's The Great Adventure. Lee Shubert and his partner in the Booth, Winthrop Ames, had just survived an adventure far uptown. They were involved in the building of the New Theater, on Central Park West between 62nd & 63rd Streets. Designed by distinguished architects Carrere and Hastings, the huge theater meant to house subsidized productions affordable to all people. The effort went belly up after 2 years; it is thought by some that this experience influenced the decision to build the Booth as a small house

1918 Ruth Gordon appears in Hugh Stange's drama Seventeen

1921 The Green Goddess is a 440-performance hit, featuring George Arliss and Ronald Colman

1922 Helen Menken and George Gaul are on cloud nine through 704 performances of the smash drama hit Seventh Heaven

1924 Helen Hayes appears with Mary Young and John Halliday in Edgar Selwyn's drama Dancing Mothers

1927 Ruth Gordon is back at the Booth, this time in Maxwell Anderson's comedy Saturday's Children, with Roger Pryor

1929 500 performances is a huge number for a comedy in the '20s. John Drinwater's Bird in Hand achieves it

1936 George S Kaufman and Moss Hart win the Pulitzer Prize for You Can't Take It With You. Josephine Hull and Henry Travers star in this long-running comedy

1939 William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life lands the Pulitzer this time. The cast at the Booth features Eddie Dowling and Julie Haydon, with Gene Kelley, Celeste Holm and William Bendix

1939 You know his name as that of a famed film director. This year Otto Preminger makes his stage debut in Claire Boothe's comedy Margin for Error. He appears with Sam Levene

1946 Playboy of the Western World stars Burgess Meredith and Mildred Natwick. Two young actresses in the cast go on to win an armful of Tony awards. Maureen Stapleton, making her Broadway debut, wins a Tony for featured actress in '51, and best actress Tony twenty years later. Julie Harris receives 5 best actress Tonys (in '52, '56, '69, '73 and '77).

1950 Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer star in the first Broadway staging of a William Inge play, Come Back Little Sheba

1957 Gore Vidal's A Visit to a Small Planet stars Cyril Ritchard

1958 Anne Bancroft and Henry Fonda are Two for the Seesaw. Bancroft receives a Tony for her performance

1959 Paddy Chayefsky's thriller The Tenth Man starts a long run with Lou Jacobi, Risa Schwartz and Jack Gilford

1961 Julie Harris is back, this time with Walter Matthau and William Shatner, in the hilarious A Shot in the Dark. Matthau wins Tony recognition as featured actor in a play

1964 Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson are in Luv

1969 Blythe Danner, Keir Dullea and Eileen Heckart start a string of 1,333 Butterflies Are Free performances

1974 Dustin Hoffman directs Barnard Hughes, Jill Eikenberry and Cleavon Little in the Murray Shisgal comedy All Over Town

1979 Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man wins the Tony for best play, as does Jack Hofsiss for direction and actress Carole Shelley for outstanding performance by an actress

1984 JamesLapine wrote the book. Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics. Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin starred. Sunday in the Park with George wins the Pulitzer Prize

1985 Good stuff: Tony's best actor Judd Hirsch and Cleavon Little star in Tony's best play: I'm Not Rappaport

1989 Robert Morse's tour-de-force portrayal of Truman Capote in Tru wins a best actor Tony

1992 Stephen Rea, Alec McGowen and James McDaniel are featured in the Frank McGuinness drama Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

1994 We have to throw it in 'cause we like the title and the concept: Joe Sears and Jaston Williams A Tuna Christmas

1999 Barry Humphries brings his eccentric British character to Broadway when Dame Edna: The Royal Tour hits the boards on October 17th