Hudson Theater
145 W 44th Street
between 6th & 7th Avenues
Completed 1902-04 Architect J B
McElfatrick & Son | Israels & Harder
Restored 1990 Architect Stonehill
& Taylor
Along with the New Victory, Lyceum
and New Amsterdam Theaters, the Hudson Theater is one of the
oldest surviving legitimate theaters on Broadway. After Oscar
Hammerstein made the move above 42nd Street in 1895, his
colleagues stampeded after him, among them producer Henry B
Harris. The building functioned as Harris' business offices and
theater and he chose a simplified Beaux Arts motif as a symbol of
his operation
The theater's opening on October
19, 1903, was auspicious, Ethel Barrymore in Cousin Kate.
But the theater had a troubled life. For most of the '30s it was a
CBS radio studio; in the '50s it was NBC's turn, this time using
the Hudson as a television studio. A couple of fitful tries at
legitimate fare in the '60s quickly degraded into yearly burlesque
revivals. The theater was dark for a long period before being
subsumed by the Millenium Broadway Hotel in 1990. It was renovated
and now functions as the hotel's meeting and presentation space
1904 Ethel Barrymore is back on the
Hudson's stage in Thomas Raceward's Sunday
1918 Friendly Enemies is a
long-running drama by Samuel Shipman and Aaron Hoffman. It stars
Sam Bernard and Louis Mann
1919 Booth Tarkington's comedy Clarence
features a neat trio: Alfred Lunt, Mary Boland and Helen Hayes
1927 The Plough and the Stars, Sean
O'Casey's drama stars Arthur Sinclair and Sara Allgood
1929 The revue Hot Chocolates
doesn't have much to be remembered for, except Louis Armstrong
playing "Ain't Misbehavin'"
1945 Playwrights Howard Lindey and Russel
Crouse win the Pulitzer Prize for State of the Union
starring Ralph Bellamy and Ruth Hussey. The show is on the stage
for 765 performances. It could have stayed longer, they owned the
theater at the time.
1949 Ralph Bellamy returns to the Hudson
in Sidney Kingsley's classic Detective Story. The show also
features Warren Stevens, Maureen Stapleton, Joseph Wiseman and a
young Lee Grant making her Broadway debut
1960 Kermit Bloomgarden produces and
Arthur Penn directs Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic.
The solid cast includes Jason Robards Jr, Maureen Stapleton, Ann
Revere and Irene Worth. Revere earns a Tony
for her performance
1963 Jose Quintero, the master O'Neill
interpreter, directs this revival of Strange Interlude,
starring Geraldine Page, Jane Fonda, Franchot Tone, Ben Gazzara,
Pat Hingle and Betty Field
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