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Winter Garden Theatre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan.
Architect William Albert Swasey converted the former American Horse Exchange into a theatre for the Shuberts when they acquired the property. The fourth New York City venue to be christened the Winter Garden, it opened on March 10, 1911 with the early Jerome Kern musical La Belle Paree.
It was completely remodeled in 1922 by Herbert J. Krapp. The large stage is wider than those in most Broadway houses, and the proscenium arch is relatively low. The building is situated uniquely on its lot, with the main entrance and marquee, located on Broadway, connected to the 1530-seat Seventh Avenue auditorium via a long hallway, and the rear wall of the stage abutting 50th Street.
The theatre's most famous and longest tenant was Cats, which opened on October 7, 1982 and ran 7,485 performances spanning nearly nineteen years. The auditorium had been gutted to accommodate the show's junkyard setting, and after its closing architect Francesca Russo supervised its restoration, returning it to its 1920s appearance.
In its early days, the theatre frequently hosted series of revues presented under the umbrella titles The Passing Show, Artists and Models, and The Greenwich Village Follies. Following the 1932 death of Florenz Ziegfeld, the Shuberts acquired the rights to the name and format of his famed Ziegfeld Follies, and they presented several productions under that name featuring performers such as Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, Eve Arden, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Josephine Baker. It served as a Warner Bros. movie house from 1928 to 1933 and a United Artists cinema in 1945, but aside from these interruptions has operated as a legitimate theatre since it opened. Due to the size of its auditorium, stage, and backstage facilities, it is a house favored for large musical productions.
In 2002, under an agreement between the Shubert Organization, which owns the theatre, and General Motors, it was renamed the Cadillac Winter Garden Theatre. At the beginning of 2007, the corporation's sponsorship ended and the venue returned to its original name.
- 1935: At Home Abroad
- 1937: Hooray for What!
- 1938: Hellzapoppin
- 1944: Mexican Hayride
- 1948: As the Girls Go
- 1950: Alive and Kicking
- 1951: Make a Wish
- 1953: Wonderful Town
- 1954: Peter Pan
- 1955: Plain and Fancy
- 1956: Bus Stop; Shangri-La
- 1959: West Side Story; Saratoga
- 1960: Once Upon a Mattress; The Unsinkable Molly Brown
- 1962: Carnival!; All American
- 1963: Tovarich
- 1964: Funny Girl
- 1966: Mame
- 1970: Georgy; Purlie
- 1971: Follies
- 1974: Gypsy
- 1976: Pacific Overtures; Fiddler on the Roof
- 1977: Beatlemania
- 1979: Gilda Radner - Live from New York
- 1980: 42nd Street
- 1982: Cats
- 2001: Mamma Mia!