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Walter Kerr Theatre
Walter Kerr Theatre, New York, on West 48th Street, between Broadway and 8th Avenue. Seating 950, this opened as the Ritz in 1921, but success did not come until 1924 with the production of Sutton Vane's Outward Bound and Galsworthy's Old English, with George Arliss as Sylvanus Heythorp. In the following year Ashley Dukes's The Man with a Load of Mischief had a short run. A further series of failures was broken in 1927 by the long run of John McGowan's Excess Baggage, a comedy on the heartbreaks of vaudeville. In 1937 the theatre was taken over by the Federal Theatre Project, which presented there the Living Newspaper Power. A year later T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral had a short run, and after a Federal Theatre production in 1939 the theatre was taken over for radio and television. Unsuccessful attempts to reopen it were made in 1970 and 1972, and in 1973 it was taken over by the Robert F. Kennedy Theatre for Children, which remained there until 1976 when a financial crisis caused it to leave. The theatre fell into disrepair, but reopened in 1990, renovated and renamed, with August Wilson's The Piano Lesson.
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Cite this article
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Walter Kerr Theatre." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Walter Kerr Theatre." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-WalterKerrTheatre.html PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Walter Kerr Theatre." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-WalterKerrTheatre.html |
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Walter Kerr Theatre
Walter Kerr Theatre (New York). Despite a checkered history that saw it reduced to a porn movie house and a massage parlor for a time, this playhouse on West 48th Street has survived and today is a very desirable house for nonmusical plays. The 1,000‐seat theatre was designed by Herbert J. Krapp in the Italian Renaissance style and built by the Shuberts in 1921 as the Ritz Theatre. During the 1930s it was used by the Federal Theatre Project and was called the WPA Theatre, then in 1939 it was renamed CBS Theatre No. 4 and was used for radio broadcasts. In the 1940s and 1950s it fluctuated from legit to radio and television and then to movies, reaching its low point in the 1960s. The Ritz returned as a legit house in 1970, and in 1983 it was bought by Jujamcyn, which renovated it and kept the space busy with small productions. In 1990 a more extensive restoration returned the theatre to its original luster, and it was renamed once again, this time after critic Walter Kerr.
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Cite this article
Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Walter Kerr Theatre." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Walter Kerr Theatre." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-WalterKerrTheatre.html Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Walter Kerr Theatre." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-WalterKerrTheatre.html |
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