Music Box Theater
The Music Box Theater is a Broadway theater in Manhattan (239 West 45th Street). Today it has 1009 seats. However, it has always been one of the smaller official Broadway houses. Since 2007 it has belonged to the Shubert Organization , which had owned part of the capital since 1940.
Broadway revues dominated in the 1910s and 1920s . The theater was built for The Music Box Revue , designed by theater producer Sam H. Harris and composer Irving Berlin , and opened in 1921. In addition to musical productions, it repeatedly performed plays. Humphrey Bogart was seen on this stage in 1925. The stage play Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins , which was later turned into a musical, premiered here in 1926. In 1931 George Gershwin's musical satire Of Thee I Sing was launched, which won a Pulitzer Prize . Even Cole Porter's music was occasionally heard. The team of authors George Simon Kaufman and Moss Hart celebrated great success here in the 1930s. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1937) is one of the major dramas that premiered here .
The Burlesque -Star Gypsy Rose Lee appeared in 1942, Marlon Brando gave his Broadway debut in 1944 at this stage. Plays by Harold Pinter and Arthur Laurents were performed around the middle of the 20th century, when American stage drama was at its peak . The innovative music theater composer Stephen Sondheim was able to stage several of his productions here. Stars like Amanda Plummer could be seen.
In 1999 a revival of Peter Shaffers Amadeus was shown, in 2003 The Cat ran on the hot tin roof of Tennessee Williams .
