New Amsterdam Theatre

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New Amsterdam Theatre (New York). Built in 1903 as the flagship of the Erlanger empire from designs by Herts and Tallant, this ornate house helped establish 42nd Street as New York's principal theatrical thoroughfare. Within the eleven‐story structure were two theatres (a 1,750‐seat auditorium and a rooftop theatre), elevators, lounges, decorative murals, and an elegant green, mother of pearl, and mauve color scheme. Although the theatre opened with A Midsummer Night's Dream and left the legitimate fold after Walter Huston's 1937 Othello, it was known primarily as a musical house. Most of the Ziegfeld Follies played there, as did The Merry Widow, Sally, The Band Wagon, and other great musical hits. For many years its enclosed roof garden housed a popular cabaret, ideal for summertime fare before the advent of air conditioning. In 1937 the house started showing films, and it slowly deteriorated over the decades. In 1979 both its exterior and interior were declared landmarks, but the old house was not restored until 1992 when the Disney corporation bought it and started to renovate the theatre as part of the redevelopment of 42nd Street. More than $50 million was spent to re‐create the original colors, fixtures, and ornamentation of the New Amsterdam, and the result was proclaimed by all to be perhaps the finest theatre restoration project in the city. The theatre reopened in 1997 with a limited run of King David, then six months later The Lion King (1997) became its first new (and longest) tenant.

New Amsterdam Theatre, New York, on West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues. This opened in 1903 with Nat Goodwin in A Midsummer Night's Dream, while later in the year came the Drury Lane pantomime Mother Goose. Among visiting stars were Mrs Patrick Campbell in Sardou's The Sorceress (1904) and the Forbes-Robertsons in Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1906). Brewster's Millions (also 1906) by McCutcheon, Smith, and Ongley and the operetta The Merry Widow (1907) were both successful. Beerbohm Tree came in Henry VIII (1916). The theatre, however, was mainly occupied by musical comedy and revue, being best known for the Ziegfeld Follies, seen annually from 1913 to 1924. In 1933 Eva Le Gallienne brought an adaptation of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard from the Civic Repertory Theatre for a successful run. The last production was Othello in 1937, with sets by Robert Edmond Jones, after which the building became a cinema.