Belasco Theatre

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Belasco Theatre, New York. The first theatre of this name opened as the Republic. The second, on West 44th Street, between Broadway and 6th Avenue, opened as the Stuyvesant in 1907 with Belasco's A Grand Army Man, and was renamed the Belasco in 1910, opening with The Lily, an adaptation by Belasco of Leroux's Le Lys (1908). Belasco's productions included his own The Return of Peter Grimm (1911), with Warfield as the old man who returns after death to rectify the errors of his life, and Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1923), based on Martini's Ridi, pagliaccio (1919). The theatre was at one time leased by Katharine Cornell, who produced there a translation of Obey's Le Viol de Lucrèce (1931) as Lucrece (1932), and Sidney Howard's Alien Corn (1933). Two plays by Elmer Rice were produced in 1934, Judgement Day and Between Two Worlds, and from 1935 to 1941 the Group Theatre had their headquarters there, producing several plays by Clifford Odets. From 1949 to 1953 the theatre was used for broadcasting, but then housed Teichmann and Kaufman's The Solid Gold Cadillac. In 1964 the National Repertory Theatre, with Eva Le Gallienne, played a season and two years later came Frank Marcus's The Killing of Sister George. In 1975 the interior was converted to cabaret-style seating for The Rocky Horror Show, later reverting to conventional seating. The theatre, which is now owned by the Shubert organization, was used for ‘ Shakespeare on Broadway for Schools’, presented by Papp, in 1986.

Belasco Theatre (New York). Producer‐playwright David Belasco built this up‐to‐date theatre in 1907 on West 44th Street with a modern stage lighting system to show off his realistic productions. Since he already had another theatre named the Belasco, he called this one the Stuyvesant, but three years later Belasco renamed it after himself when he lost the earlier house. George Keister designed the 1,100‐seat theatre that boasted a complex dimmer board, an elevator stage, and a private apartment overhead for Belasco. It opened with A Grand Army Man, cowritten and directed by the owner, and later featured such famous Belasco productions as The Return of Peter Grimm (1911), Kiki (1921), Lulu Belle (1926), and The Governor's Lady (1912) in which he recreated Child's restaurant onstage. The house became an NBC broadcasting studio in 1950 but three years later regained its legitimate status and has been in use as a theatre ever since. In 1991 the Shubert‐owned house became the home of Tony Randall's National Actors Theatre, but other tenants have used it as well.