Winter Garden Theater
1634 Broadway
between 50th & 51st Streets
Completed 1911 Architect W
Albert Swasey
Remodeled 1922-1923 Architect
Herbert J Krapp
The American Horse Exchange
building was erected in 1885 when Longacre Square was mostly home
to stables and horse dealers, somewhat like the new and used car
centers of today. When the Shuberts decided to build a musical
comedy house, they decided on the Horse Exchange site a few blocks
north of the main cluster of Broadway theaters, but not as far
north as ill-fated attempts above 59th Street. It seems they chose
well
The exterior of the original
theater, designed by W Albert Swasey, is somewhat Greco-Roman but
entirely undistinguished. It is the interior, revamped, remodeled
and revitalized by Herbert J Krapp in 1922-1923 that is the
landmark. The Shuberts gave Krapp free reign to pour on the
plaster and paint and the result is one of the most lavish of
Krapp's lavish Adamesque theater interiors
The premiere production was a
Jerome Kern revue La Belle Paree which introduced Al Jolson
to Broadway, pretty auspicious beginnings for what would become a
great musical house. For a brief time, from 1928 through 1933,
Warner Brothers used the theater as a movie studio but it quickly
returned to legitimate use and has been successful since
1911 The Revue of Revues only runs
for 55 performances but signals Gaby Deslys American debut
1912 Al Jolson teams up with Blossom
Seeley for 136 performances of the Whirl of Society revue
1913 Al Jolson again, this time with Gaby
Deslys and Fanny Brice in the musical Honeymoon Express
1914 The Howard brothers, Willie and
Eugene, share the stage with Lilliane Lorraine in the Sigmund
Romberg revue The Whirl of the World
1915 One more time for Willie and Eugene
Howard, this time with Marilyn Miller in The Passing Show of
1915. This is Miller's Broadway bow
1916 Everybody has to start somewhere and
teenaged Ira Gershwin gets his first Broadway song into the Victor
Herbert-Sigmund Romberg Passing Show of 1916
1934 Fanny Brice introduces Baby Snooks in
The Ziegfeld Follies of 1934
1936 Here's a bill: Bob Hope, Eve Arden,
Josephine Baker, Judy Canova and Gypsy Rose Lee share the stage in
the '36 version of The Follies
1943 The Follies are still going
strong, this year's version headlined by Milton Berle with Ilona
Massey and Arthur Treacher
1944 Composer Cole Porter doesn't much
like his own show, but Bobby Clark and June Havoc play Mexican
Hayride in front of 479 audiences
1951 Phil Silvers wins a Tony
for his performance in the Johnny Mercer musical Top Banana.
Sharing the stage are Jack Albertson and Rose Marie
1953 Joseph Fields, Jerome Chodorov,
Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green collaborated on
the Tony-winning
hit musical Wonderful Town. The show stars Rosalind Russel,
Edie Adams and George Gaynes and earns Tonys
for Russel and choreographer Donald Saddler
1954 Betty Comden and Adolph Green are
back, this time writing the book for Peter Pan. Mary Martin
and Cyril Ritchard star and win Tonys
1957 Tonight, tonight . . . is the opening
of West Side Story, the Arthur Laurents-Leonard
Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim musical. Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert and
Chita Rivera dance to Jerome Robbins Tony-winning
choreography
1960 Tammy Grimes is The Unsinkable
Molly Brown and wins a Tony
for her performance in the Meredith Wilson comedy
1964 Barbra Streisand, Sydney Chaplin, Kay
Medfor, Jean Stapleton and Lainie Kazan start off the 1,348
performance run of Funny Girl
1966 Who can replace Streisand and Funny
Girl? Try Angela Lansbury, Bea Arthur and Frankie Michaels in Mame.
The 1,508 performance musical earns Tonys
for all three stars
1971 The Stephen Sondheim musical Follies
earns Tonys
for directors Hal Prince and Michael Bennett and star Alexis
Smith. Bennett also earns a Tony
for his choreography
1974 Another Tony
for Angela Lansbury for her performance in the Arthur
Laurents-Jule Stein-Stephen Sondheim musical Gypsy
1976 Does anybody remember Stephen
Sonhdeim's Pacific Overtures?
1977 What would you do if you sang out of
tune? 920 performances of Beatlemania maybe?
1980 Director Gower Champion doesn't live
to see his latest triumph, he passes away the afternoon 42nd
Street opens to rave reviews. Jerry Orbach and Tammy Grimes
star in the show that garners Tony's
best musical award and run for 3,486 performances
1982 Shakespeare still makes for great
drama, especially when it's James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer,
Diane Wiest and Kelsey Grammar in Othello
1982 This is the last entry for the Winter
Garden for awhile. On October 7, 1982 a feline curiosity opened at
the theater and remains a great memory for many people. Betty
Buckley is probably the only actor anybody can name from the
opening and subsequent casts of Cats,
but she put an indelible mark on the Andrew Lloyd Weber show,
based on the writings of T S Elliot. Buckley wins a Tony,
Elliot wins for the book, Weber and Elliot win for the score, and
Trevor Nunn wins for his direction. Cats
became the longest running show in Broadway history in June 1997
and it appears that these feline legs have a ways to go
2000 After only 7,485 performances the
final curtain closes on Cats
2001 Mamma
Mia!, the musical based on 20-year-old hits by supergroup
ABBA, opens in October with more than a year's worth of sold seats
in the bag
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