Theater District, Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
The building of the Little Theater marked a new direction in the history of the Broadway stage, and in the design of Broadway theaters. Designed by Ingalls & Hoffman and built in 1912, the Little Theater's neo- Colonial styling lent an air of charm and mild eccentricity to a Broadway then accustomed to a more formal Classical or Beaux-Arts design. Commissioned by Winthrop Ames, an independently wealthy producer with an architectural background and unusual ideas about drama, the Little Theater was designed to house the new, detailed type of drama called "intimate theater."
Ames had observed and listened to intimate drama in the United States and particularly in Europe where he traveled extensively; he had seen the architectural prototypes, such as London's Little Theater and Berlin's Chamber Theater, for what he envisioned would be his own Broadway showcase for this alternative theater. "The purpose," he stated referring to his new house, "is the production of plays which can be rendered by the most delicate shade of expression." In fact, the Little Theater seated only 299 when it opened on March 11, 1912. Although alterations have been made and its capacity increased, today the Little Theater, seating 499, is still the "littlest" theater on Broadway.
As one of the theaters in the Broadway theater district, the Little Theater has participated for three-quarters of a century in the history of both Broadway and the American theater. As one of the pre-World War I theater buildings, it is among the oldest group of theaters surviving in New York. As a manifestation of the theatrical and architectural theories of Winthrop Ames, it represents a special aspect of the nation's theatrical history. As an unusual neo-Georgian design, it has a striking presence within the theater district. As one of the theaters in the Shubert Alley grouping, it contributes to the visual identity of the Broadway theater district's symbolic core. The Little Theater survives today as one of the historic Broadway theaters that symbolize American theater for both New York and the nation.
The development of the Broadway Theater District
The area of midtown Manhattan known today as the Broadway theater district encompasses the largest concentration of legitimate playhouses in the world. The theaters located there, some dating from the turn of the century, are significant for their contributions to the history of the New York stage, for their influence upon American theater as a whole, and in many cases for their architectural design.
The development of the area around Times Square as New York's theater district at the end of the 19th century occurred as a result of two related factors: the northward movement of the population of Manhattan Island (abetted by the growth of several forms of mass transportation), and the expansion of New York's role in American theater. The northward movement of Manhattan's residential, commercial, and entertainment districts had been occurring at a steady rate throughout the 19th century. In the early 1800s, businesses, stores, hotels, and places of amusement had clustered together in the vicinity of lower Broadway.
As New York's various businesses moved north, they began to isolate themselves in more or less separate areas: the financial institutions remained downtown; the major retail stores situated themselves on Broadway between 14th and 23rd Streets, eventually moving to Herald Square and Fifth Avenue at the turn of the century; the hotels, originally located near the stores and theaters, began to congregate around major transportation centers such as Grand Central Terminal or on the newly fashionable Fifth Avenue; while the mansions of the wealthy spread farther north on Fifth Avenue, as did such objects of their beneficence as the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The theater district, which had existed in the midst of stores, hotels, and other businesses along lower Broadway for most of the 19th century, spread northward in stages, stopping for a time at Union Square, then Madison Square, then Herald Square. By the last two decades of the 19th century, far-sighted theater managers had begun to extend the theater district even farther north along Broadway, until they had reached the area that was then known as Long Acre Square and is today called Times Square.
A district of farmlands and rural summer homes in the early 1800s, Long Acre Square had by the turn of the century evolved into a hub of mass transportation. A horsecar line had run across 42nd Street as early as the 1860s, and in 1878, with the opening of Grand Central Terminal and the completion of the Third and Sixth Avenue Elevated Railways, it was comparatively simple for both New Yorkers and out-of-towers to reach Long Acre Square. Transportation continued to play a large part in the development of the area; in 1904 New York's subway system was inaugurated, with a major station located at 42nd Street and Broadway. The area was then renamed Times Square in honor of the newly erected Times Building. The evolution of the Times Square area as a center of Manhattan's various mass transit systems made it a natural choice for the location of legitimate playhouses, which needed to be easily accessible to their audiences.
The theater business that invaded Long Acre Square at the end of the 19th century consisted of far more than a few playhouses, for at that time New York was the starting-point for a vast, nationwide entertainment network known as "the road." This complex theater operation had its beginnings in the 1860s when the traditional method of runnng a theater, the stock system, was challenged by the growing popularity of touring "combination" shows.
In contrast to the stock system, in which a theater manager engaged a company of actors for a season and presented them in a variety of plays, the combination system consisted of a company of actors appearing in a single show which toured from city to city, providing its own scenery, costumes, and sometimes musical accompaniment. Helped by the expansion of the nation's railroads after the Civil War, the combination system soon killed off the majority of stock companies. By 1904 there were some 420 combination companies touring through thousands of theaters in cities and towns across the country.
Of crucial importance to the operation of the combination system was a single location where combination shows could be cast, rehearsed, tried out, and then booked for a cross-country tour. Since New York was already regarded as the most important theater city in America, it is not surprising that it became the headquarters for the combination system. In addition to the many theaters needed for an initial Broadway production for the combinations before they went on tour, New York's theater district encompassed rehearsal halls, the headquarters of scenery, costume, lighting, and makeup companies, offices of theatrical agents and producers, theatrical printers and newspapers, and other auxiliary enterprises. Close to the theater district were boarding houses catering to the hundreds of performers who came to New York in the hope of being hired for a touring show or a Broadway production.
As theaters were built farther uptown, the auxiliary enterprises also began to move north. By the turn of the century,
the section of Broadway between 37th Street and 42nd Street was known as the Rial to. Theater people gathered or promenaded there. Producers could sometimes cast a play by looking over the actors loitering on the Rialto; and out-of-town managers, gazing out of office windows, could book tours by seeing who was available.*'
The theater district that moved north to Long Acre Square in the 1890s was thus a vast array of business enterprises devoted to every facet of theatrical production.
The movement of the theater district north a1ong Broadway had proceeded at a steady pace during the latter part of the 19th century. The Casino Theater was opened on the southeast corner of Broadway and 39th Street in 1882. A year later, it was j oined by a most ambitious undertaking--the construction of the Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway between 39th and 40 th Streets. In 1888, the Broadway Theater was erected on the southwest comer of Broadway and 41st Street. Five years later, the American Theater opened its doors at Eighth Avenue between 41st and 42nd Streets, as did Abbey's Theater at Broadway and 38th Street and the Empire Theater at Broadway and Fortieth Street.
It remained for Oscar Hammerstein I to make the move into Long Acre Square itself. At the close of the 19th century, Long Acre Square housed Manhattan's harness and carriage businesses, but was little used at night, when it seems to have become a "thieves' lair." In 1895 Hammerstein erected an enormous theater building on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets. The original plan for the Olympia called for a "perfect palace of entertainment--which would have included three theaters, a bowling alley, a turkish bath, cafes and restaurants."
Only part of this visionary plan ever became a reality. On November 25, 1895, Hammerstein opened the Lyric Theater section of the building, and a little over three weeks later he inaugurated the Music Hall section. Never a financial success, the Olympia closed its doors two years after it opened. Nevertheless, it earned Hammerstein the title of "Father of Times Square."
By the turn of the century Hammerstein had built two more theaters in the Long Acre Square area, and in the years 1901-1920 a total of forty- three additional theaters appeared in midtown Manhattan, most of them in the side streets east and west of Broadway. Much of this theater-building activity was inspired by the competition between two major forces in the industry, the Theatrical Syndicate and the Shubert Brothers, for control of the road. As each side in the rivalry drew its net more tightly around the playhouses it owned or controlled, the other side was forced to build new theaters to house its attractions. The result was a dramatic increase in the number of playhouses, both in New York and across the country.
After World War I, as the road declined and New York's theatrical activity increased, the general economic prosperity made possible the construction of thirty additional playhouses in the Times Square area, expanding the boundaries of the theater district so that it stretched from west of Eighth Avenue to Sixth Avenue, and from 39th Street to Columbus Circle.
The stock market crash of 1929 and the resulting Depression caused a shrinkage in theater activity. Some playhouses were torn down, many were converted to motion picture houses, and later to radio and television studios. From the time of the Depression until the 1960s no new Broadway playhouses were constructed. Fortunately, the theaters that survive from the early part of the century represent a cross-section of types and styles, and share among them a good deal of New York's rich theatrical history.
Evolution of Theater Design
The frenzy of theater construction that occurred in New York during the first thirty years of this century brought with it an evolution in architecture and decoration. At the close of the 19th century American theaters were still being built in the style of traditional European opera houses, with high proscenium arches, narrow auditoriums, two or three balconies built in a horseshoe configuration, and dozens of boxes, some set into the front of the first balcony. Although contemporary notices of the theaters attributed specific (though often vague) styles or periods to them, their interiors were more often than not a melange of styles and colors.
With the increase of theater construction after the turn of the century came a new attitude toward theater architecture and decoration as firms such as Herts and Tall ant, Thomas W. Lamb, and others, began to plan the playhouse's exterior and interior as a single, integrated design. The Art Nouveau style New Amsterdam Theater, which opened in 1903, signalled this new seriousness in theater design.
Perhaps influenced by such European experiments as Wagner's Festival Theater at Bayreuth, American theater architects after the turn of the century began to structure their playhouses along different lines. Proscenium openings were made lower and wider, auditoriums were made shallower, seating was planned in a fan shape, and the number of balconies was usually reduced to one. Boxes were cut back to a minimum. The theaters that were built just before and after World War I for the most part shared this new configuration.
Because many of New York's extant playhouses were built during the period in which New York was serving as the starting-point for nationwide tours, they represent a style of theater architecture that is characteristic not only of New York but also of other cities across the United States, for a show which was originally produced in a New York theater would require similar conditions in the theaters in which it toured, and theater owners often hired the same architects to design and build theaters in several cities. Thus, New York's theaters set the standard for theater construction across the United States, as an inspection of designs for theaters in various cities will show.
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The Broadway Theater in American Theatrical History
The playhouses still standing in the Broadway theater district share among them over eighty years of American theatrical history. In the early years of the century, when American theater was still heavily influenced by Europe, the theaters played host to such great international stars as Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and to adaptations of such European successes as The Merry Widow and Floradora.
It was in the Broadway theaters that the beginnings of a distinctly American drama could be seen in the Western melodramas of David Belasco, the social comedies of Clyde Fitch and Langdon Mitchell, and the problem plays of Edward Sheldon and Eugene Walter. With the rise of the "little theater" movement in the second decade of the century, it seemed that theatrical leadership had passed from Broadway to such experimental "art" theaters as the Provincetown Playhouse and the Neighborhood Playhouse. Before long, however, the innovations of the little theaters infused Broadway with new life. Beginning with the production of Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon, on Broadway in 1920, the playhouses of Broadway presented the work of a new generation of playwrights, including, in addition to O'Neill, Maxwell Anderson, Philip Barry, S.N. Behrman, Rachel Crothers, Sidney Howard, George S. Kaufman, George Kelly and Elmer Rice.
The Depression of the 1930s brought with it a new concern with political and social issues, and the dramas presented in the Broadway playhouses reflected that concern. Commercial producers gave us plays by Lillian Hellman, Robert E. Sherwood, and Thornton Wilder, whle the Group Theater and other new organizations introduced such writers as Clifford Odets and Sidney Kings ley. The Broadway theaters continued to house challenging plays during the 1940s and 1950s, when new talents such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and William Inge first began writing for the theater.
Meanwhile, musical comedy had blossomed from the adaptations and imitations of European operetta popular at the turn of the century to a uniquely American art form. By the 1940s and 1950s the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and many others, were being exported from the stages of Broadway to theaters around the world.
The 1960s and 1970s were decades of ferment and change, both in and out of the theater. As in the 1920s, the impetus for theatrical experimentation came from outside of Broadway, and as in the 1920s, the experimentation helped to revitalize the Broadway theater. Today, the playhouses of Broadway are showcases for the best plays of the Off- and Off-Off Broadway theaters, as well as for exciting productions from theatrical workshops, regional theaters, and outstanding foreign companies.
Having moved gradually northward all during the 19th century, New York's theater district finally came to rest at Times Square, where it has remained for almost ninety years. The economic Depression of the 1930s discouraged speculative ventures such as the construction of new theaters, while after prosperity returned in the wake of World War II, the cost of renting land and constructing a theater was prohibitively high. The northward movement of the theater district may also have been discouraged for a number of years by the existence of the Sixth Avenue Elevated Railway, which crossed from Sixth to Ninth Avenues at 53rd Street, thereby providing a natural northern boundary for the theater district.
The Little Theater, as one of the Broadway theaters surviving today in the theater district, contributes to the totality of the district's history by virtue of its participation in that history.
Winthrop Ames
Although Winthrop Ames (1871-1937) would become one of Broadway's most prominent producers and an important force in the development of the American theater, he did not formally begin his theatrical career until the age of 34. As a drama major at Harvard University, Ames had fallen in love with the amateur theater and written a show entitled Proserpina for the notorious Hasty Pudding Ensemble. His wealthy, socially prominent
North Easton, Massachusetts family, however, strongly advised him against pursuing his theatrical interest, and instead urged him to follow the family tradition and join the Ames Shovel & Tool Company. Ames had also studied architecture at Harvard, so as a compromise, the young Ames worked with the Boston firm of Bates & Guild, publishers of art and architecture books and the periodical The Architectural Review.
Despite his family's concerns, Ames's passion for the theater was relentless. After six years of publishing and following a lengthy sojourn in Europe where he immersed himself in studying the continental stage, Winthrop Ames associated himself with Loren F. Deland in 1904 to manage Boston's Castle Square Theater. Together they produced a wide range of shows including musicals, classical and modern drama, light opera, and farces.
In 1907, Ames toured Europe once again with the intention of learning about all the technical intricacies of modern theater design, new acting techniques, and the many original approaches being made in the art of play writing. While traveling, he maintained an extensive--and today, invaluable - -j ournal with drawings and descriptions detailing everything from new lighting innovations to the complexities of proper house management and stage mechanics. With this knowledge, Ames felt he could build his own theater in Boston and start a repertory company modeled after the finest ones in Europe.
Indeed, soon after his return from Europe, Ames's ambitious plans and the previous successes of the Castle Square Theater attracted the attention of a group of New York millionaires who decided that their city, and not Boston, should be the proper home of a national performance company. In 1908 Ames accepted the directorship of the New Theater to carry out what he had originally intended for Boston: to give America a repertory company patterned after the subsidized state theaters of Germany and Austria, and the Comedie Francaise in Paris. Unfortunately, the whole plan proved to be too expensive and the New Theater, a large, elaborately designed building designed by Carrere & Hastings at the corner of Central Park West and 62nd Street, was closed in 1912.
Ames's experience with the New Theater apparently convinced him that large theaters were problematic; the two theaters he built for his own productions over the next two years were small, intimate houses. In 1912, Ames built the Little Theater, financing most of its construction with his inheritance from the Ames Shovel & Tool Company. Like the New Theater, the Little Theater represented an experiment in the dramatic arts based on European precedents; this time, however, Ames wanted to present small productions that would not ordinarily have been suitable for the larger Broadway houses. The Little Theater originally seated only 299 playgoers, and its success was said to have been "one of the chief stimulants of the little-theater movement that was to flourish in other cities."
In 1912-13 Ames built the Booth Theater at 222 West 45th Street in association with Lee Shubert. The Booth was built as one of a pair with the Shubert Theater, creating "Shubert Alley" at the rear of the Astor Hotel. The larger Shubert Theater was intended as a memorial to Sam S. Shubert, but the Booth was designed to Ames's specifications as a small, intimate house.
Ames's own architectural background, both in architectural studies at Harvard and in architectural publishing, enabled him to contribute to the design of his theaters. In his European travel journal his meticuloug notes extended to architectural innovations in the theaters he visited. He was impressed by the proportions of the proscenium at the Neues Schauspielhaus in Munich, Also in Germany he noted the development of auditoriums with no boxes, steeply raked floors, and curved seating lines. At the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig he found wood paneling being used for its acoustical properties. He later brought wood paneling to both the Booth and the Little, and at the Little did away with boxes.
Always intent on presenting quality to his audiences at both the Little and the Booth, Ames produced, and occasionally directed, plays by such writers as Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, A.A. Milne, Arthur Pinero, George S. Kaufman, and Edna Ferber. He also sponsored a $10,000 prize for the best play by an American author in 1913. The winning entry was submitted by Alice Brown, a little-known playwright, and the play, entitled Children of the Earth, opened at the Booth in 1915.
During World War I, Ames was asked by military authorities to provide entertainment for American and Allied troops. After surveying the situation, he organized the "Over There League" which sent some three hundred actors and vaudeville performers to France. Beginning in 1925, Ames also revived a series of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas including Iolanthe, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Despite predictions of failure in theater circles and among critics, each revival turned out to be a smashing success with the public.
Two years later, what the New York Herald Tribune called "one of Mr. Ames' most important contributions to the theater" came when a series of shows regarded as obscene threatened the stage with censorship. Ames led a committee of producers in an effort to stop the proliferation of such shows, and generally cleaned up the stage. Ames also wrote one play during his professional career, for children, entitled Snow White.
Ames retired in 1929. Although much of his time was devoted to his country estate in Massachusetts, he continued writing, adapting a French play for a 1930 Broadway production with Edward G. Robinson, and publishing in 193 5 "What Shall We Name the Baby?," a study of "a familiar family problem" handled with "scholarship and sympathy."^
Ingalls & Hoffman
The Little Theater commission provided the firm of Ingalls & Hoffman with its first widely publicized design, and a corresponding level of prominence which led to a number of important commissions.
Francis Burrall Hoffman, Jr. (1882-1980) and Harry Creighton Ingalls (1876-1936) both studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Ingalls had previously been at M.I.T. Hoffman, born in New Orleans, graduated from Harvard in 1903, and from the Ecole in 1907. Following his return to New York, Hoffman joined the prestigious firm of Carrere & Hastings, and worked on the design of the New Theater which Ames directed from 1909 until its closing.
When, in 1910, Hoffman left Carrere & Hastings to form a partnership with Ingalls, Ames approached him with the idea for a small theater. The producer was impressed with Hoffman's work, but also recognized that a newly formed firm would charge smaller fees and keep costs down for his first venture.
The success of the Little Theater led to further theater designs for the firm, including the Neighborhood Playhouse (now the Henry Street Settlement's Playhouse) at 466-470 Grand Street (1913), erected for the encouragement of drama among neighborhood people to a design very similar to the Little; Henry Miller's Theater (1917-18, in collaboration with Paul Allen) at 124-130 West 43rd Street; the Renaissance Casino and Theater (1921-22, Ingalls alone) at 2341-2357 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard); and the Plaza Theater (1929, Ingalls alone), a small movie theater in the Tudor style at 42 East 58th Street.
Ingalls & Hoffman's most dramatic and famous commission came shortly after their completion of the Little Theater. John Deering, the co-founder of the International Harvester Company, had hired Paul Chatlin, an interior decorator, to help design a large villa near Miami that would house Deering's vast art collection. Chatlin, however, had little architectural training, and advised Deering to turn to the young Hoffman and his partner. The Villa Vizcaya, designed primarily by Hoffman, was a romantic composition based on Mediterranean motifs. Four distinct facades surrounding a central court each incorporated elements corresponding to the widely divergent periods and styles of art and architectural artifacts in Deering's collection. Upon its completion in 1916, the building, along with the architects and the client, attracted world-wide notice.
Besides Villa Vizcaya and their theater commissions, both Ingalls and Hoffman, working independently, designed a number of residences. Their large estates and townhouses of the decade immediately following the Little Theater are particularly interesting for their style, the same sedate but elegant neo-Georgian that was so popular in that era for residential work but quite unusual for a theater. Both Ingalls and Hoffman designed Long Island estates^, and Hoffman did a number of New York townhouses; his neo- Georgian style house at 17 East 90th Street (1919) is a designated New York City Landmark.
He also worked in Miami, after the success of Villa Vizcaya, and in Paris.
Ingalls died in 1936, but Hoffman lived until 1980. Among his last works was the 1966 addition to Gracie Mansion.
The Little Theater
Winthrop Ames built the Little Theater to house his productions of intimate drama, in the belief that such a Broadway showcase could be of great importance for the development of the dramatic arts in the United States. Ames's work at the Little Theater is regarded as pioneering, and greatly influenced the subsequent Little Theater movement.^"
Ames had seen small theaters both in Europe and America that had proven to be financial as well as artistic successes. As methods in stage direction, scenery and theater design developed and became more refined, so too did the art of acting. Whereas acting had formerly been a presentative art relying on rhetorical ski lis and sweeping exaggerated gestures, towards the end of the 19th century it became a representative art more intent on imitating all the subtleties of real life and expression.
Playwrights in turn reacted to the changing notions of theater, and theater designs then reinforced the trend toward intimacy. Gertrude Kingston's Little Theater in London and Max Reinhardt's Chamber Theater in Berlin were two of the most renowned "intimate" showcases in Europe, while Maxirie Elliott's Theater at West 39th Street in New York City gained a reputation for presenting good quality alternate drama.
A number of other small houses, many intended for amateur productions, existed in New York prior to Ames's Little Theater. The Shuberts, for example, had erected a series of "bijou playhouses" in the late 19th century, including the Comedy Theater on West 41st Street and the Princess Theater at 29th Street and Broadway.
Making use of his independent wealth, Ames leased the land for his theater from the trustees of the John Jacob Astor estate.^ The site, on the south side of 44th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, was surrounded by brownstone-faced rowhouses. Ames then hired Ingalls & Hoffman to transform his theories into reality.
Working with Ingalls & Hoffman, Ames used his knowledge of European examples to create what was called by his contemporaries an experimental theater. The Little Theater was literally a small building, noticeable as such among the larger, more ornate theaters for which Broadway was famous. Its exterior gave little indication of its theatrical function, resembling instead a Federal style house of the sort one would expect to find in New England (a location, incidentally, connected to Ames's origins, and a style which Ingalls and Hoffman used for their many residential commissions).
Inside, borrowing from German models, Ames specified an auditorium with no balcony or boxes; theoreticaly, every seat was as good as another. He limited the seating capacity to 299, thus avoiding a Fire Department regulation requiring ten-foot alleys on either side of auditoriums seating 300 or more, as well as a considerable addition to his real estate investment. The elegant neo-Georgian styling of the exterior was matched by an equally elegant Adamesque treatment in the auditorium, which also extended to the handsome lobbies and lounges.
The suggestion of an elegant house was not unintentional: it symbolized Ames playing the host to a group of guests seated in a large drawing room, listening to intimate dramas, and taking tea and refreshments before and after in comfortable lounges, with fireplaces to warm those coming in from the cold. The theater was a reflection of Ames and of his idea of what theater might be. This idea was immediately understood by contemporary observers, one of whom wrote:
This is the house of Mr. Winthrop Ames; the patrons are his guests for the nonce, in an old colonial house behind a garden wall. The auditorium is most unusual. It is as though a high and spacious room in a private house had been converted into a theater, by putting in an inclined floor and cutting a proscenium opening in the further wall.
Ironically, Ames's intention of creating an intimate theater where all seats had equally good sight lines and acoustics and cost the same was criticized as being elitist. Ticket prices of $2.50 were relatively expensive for the times, prompting the remark that "his productions are set beyond the means of those all important members of the theater going public who can afford to pay only about $1 "
The same critics characterized its architectural styling as aristocratic: "its chaste facade is suggestive of an old New England Green."
Aristocratic or not, the Little Theater embodied the special theatrical aspirations of Winthrop Ames, expressed those aims in a distinctive, elegant and unusual architectural design, and went on to influence the development of the Little Theater movement.
The Little Theater as a Playhouse^-
Ames's productions at the Little Theater were the intimate dramas for which the theater was built. It opened on March 11, 1912 with John Galsworthy's play The Pigeon, praised by critic Ward Morehouse "as a thoughtfully written comedy that brought forth human and delightful characterizations from Fran Reicher and Russ Whytel."
Other notable shows from the theater's early years, all produced by Ames, include Arthur Schnitzler's The Affairs of Anatol with Jxxx Barrymore (1912), Laurence Housman and Granville Barker's Prunella with Marguerite Clark and Ernest Glendinning (1913), and George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer with Mary Lawton and Charles Maude (1913). The last was rehearsed in England by Shaw and Granville Barker, then produced in America by Ames.
Cyril Harcourt's comedy A Pair of Silk Stockings was the theater's first real hit, playing 223 performances during the 1914/15 season. During the next few seasons, as it became apparent that even hits lost money at the Little because of its small size, the house often went dark. In 1919 Ames arranged to lease the house to Oliver Morosco, and in that year a long-contemplated balcony was added to the auditorium.
Morosco's first production at the Little was the farce Please Get Married, with Ernest Truex asnd Edith Taliaferro (160 performances). In his next two productions at the Little, Morosco attempted to continue the tradition of presenting new and experimental drama established by Ames.
Mamma's Affair, by Rachel Barton Butler, was the work of a novice playwright that had been selected, in a competition sponsored by Morosco, as the most promising work by a former Harvard drama student. Its successor, Beyond the Horizon, was Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play. Starring Richard Bennett, it ran 111 performances and won a Pulitzer Prize.
Late in 1920, the producer John Golden took over the Little, opening with one of his greatest hits, The First Year, a comedy by Frank Craven that ran 725 performances. In 1923 Golden produced two comedies by Guy Bolton at the Little that were destined to become hits: Polly Preferred, starring Genevieve Tobin, and Chicken Feed, with Roberta Arnold, the latter dealing with the right of wives to share in their husbands' incomes.
Wallace Ford and Nydia Westman starred in Pig s, a comedy about a speculator in pigs, that ran 347 performances in 1924/25. Marc Connelly's The Wisdom Tooth, with Thomas Mitchell, was a popular success in 1926, playing 160 performances. In 1929, the theater featured Rachel Crothers comedy about divorce, Let Us Be Gay. Running 132 performances, this was Crothers' second hit at the Little, her A Little Journey having been produced by Winthrop Ames in 1918.
The New York Times bought the Little Theater in 1931, intending to demolish it to create room for the delivery trucks servicing the adjacent New York Times Building. The public outcry that arose, however, stopped the proposed demolition.
From 1931 to 1941, the Times operated the Little as a theater. The first hit of the period was Elmer Rice's The Left Bank which ran 241 performances. In 1936, the long-running Pre-Honeymoon was transferred from the Lyceum to the little, which was renamed Anne Nichol's Little Theatre in honor of one of the play's authors. Other productions from 1936-37 include Henry Bernstein's Promise, with Cedric Hardwicke in his American debut; Sun Kissed, with Charles Coburn and Jean Adair; and a revival of Nichols' hit, Abie's Irish Rose, with Marian Shockley and Richard Bond. In December 1937, Cornelia Otis Skinnner appeared in her one-woman show, Edna His Wife, at which time the theater's name was changed back to the "Little Theater."
From 1941 to 1951 the Little remained dark, opening only occasionally for concerts and lectures sponsored by the Times. In 1951 the theater was leased to ABC-TV and served as a television studio until 1963, when it was sold to a private corporation headed by Roger Euster. Tambourines of Glory by Langston Hughes, a gospel-type spectacle, reopened the Little that year. In 1954 Frank Gilroy's The Subject Was Roses, which won a Tony award, moved to the Little, and Baby Want a Kiss with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward also enjoyed success.
In 1964 the Little was sold again and became the home of both the Merv Griffin and David Frost television shows. It returned to legitimate theater production in 1974, with the play My Sister, M^ Sister. Gemini opened at the Little in 1977 and ran 1819 performances, closing in 1981. The Tony-award winning musical Torch Song Trilogy opened in 1982. In July 1983, the Little was renamed the Helen Hayes Theater.
Description
The Little Theater is faced in red brick laid in Flemish bond with white French 1imestone (Pierre de Lens) trim, now painted white. The lower portion of the facade projects out several feet, housing the theater entrances. The main entrance is through a double door set within a wooden enframement, comprising slender Ionic columns with flanking sidelights of a decorative pattern of muntins with curved-sided lozenges within ovals, and topped by a segmental -arched fanlight ( which has been filled in with a wooden panel). The doorway is set within a brick elliptical arch with a console-bracket keystone and impost blocks with low-relief rosettes.
The entire doorway is framed within a pavilion fronted with paired columns with stylized Corinthian capitals supporting an entablature with an Adamesque frieze and a modil1ioned cornice; above the cornice is a wrought - iron railing with lozenge motifs. A simple bandcourse, reflecting the lower height of the wing to the west of the main entrance, runs behind the paired columns; in the space between this bandcourse and the large architrave is a panel with the inscription "THE LITTLE THEATRE MCMXII" etched between two dancing figures in classical drapery carved in low relief.
Between each pair of columns is an iron hanging lantern; beneath each is an original iron-framed announcement board crested with doub1e horizontal volutes and urns on plinths.
The projection to the west of the main entrance originally contained a set of simple double doors and three narrow windows with metal grilles; the original doors have since been replaced with four new sets of wood pane 1 ed doors, which complement the design, and the narrow windows have been removed. A marquee has been added over these doors. A stone water table runs continuously under the entranceways along the length of the facade; it has been painted black.
The second floor is articulated with six windows, topped by sp layed lintels with beaded and bracketed keystones, containing wooden eight-over- twelve sash, and flanked by louvered wooden shutters; below the six window sills are wooden panels fronted with six curved wrought-iron balconies with lozenge and circle motifs, similar in design to the railing over the main entrance. The third floor has six windows, with simple paneled keystones, aluminum replacement sash, and louvered wooden shutters. A modillioned cornice, now painted black, is all that survives of an original balustraded roof parapet.
Conclusion
The Little Theater survives today as one of the historic Broadway theaters that symbolize American theater for both New York and the nation. Located on West 44th Street, it is one of the group of theaters forming "Shubert Alley," the physical and symbolic heart of the Broadway theater district. Built in 1912, it is among the oldest theaters surviving in New York City. Designed for the patrician producer Winthrop Ames, it was intended specifically to house the intimate drama that he pioneered and which greatly influenced the "little theater"movement.
His architects, Ingalls & Hoffman, were able in the Little Theater to realize the intimate, genteel spirit of Ames's drama. Their elegant, neo-Georgian design, relying on residential motifs, succeeded in suggesting architecturally the drawing-room nature of the theater that was performed within. Over the three quarters of a century of its life, the Little Theater has continued to serve as home to countless numbers of the plays through which the Broadway theater has come to personify American theater.
- From the 1987 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report