Times Square became the epicenter for large-scale theater productions between 1900 and the
Great Depression. Manhattan's theater district had begun to shift from
Union Square and
Madison Square during the first decade of the 20th century. From 1901 to 1920, forty-three theaters were built around Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, including the Cort Theatre. John Cort was a theatrical operator who had become highly successful on the
West Coast of the United States, with 150 theaters at his peak, and came to New York City in 1905. Cort had, in 1910, become president of the
National Theatre Owners' Association, a group of circuits that tried to break away from the New York-based syndicates like the
Klaw and Erlanger circuit. Thomas Lamb was hired to design a theater there. That March, Cort announced that he would erect two theaters in New York City: the Cort Theatre on 48th Street and the Illington Theatre on 46th Street. The design of the Cort was so important that the specifications for the theater's design were encoded in the lease agreement. The opening of the theater was originally scheduled for November 1912. Theatrical critics of the time considered the Cort to be physically on the "wrong side" of
Broadway; whereas most contemporary theaters were west of that street, the Cort was to the east. ''Peg o' My Heart
had over 600 performances, a major accomplishment for the time, when 100 performances constituted a hit. In 1913, Cort gave Oliver Morosco the exclusive rights to show plays at his namesake theater for five years. After Peg o' My Heart
ended, the Mutual Film Corporation temporarily used the Cort as a cinema in mid-1914. The venue then hosted three hit productions: Under Cover
(1914), The Princess Pat (1915), Due to the large number of early hits at the Cort, it was quickly perceived among the theatrical community as a "lucky" venue. Molly O
and Upstairs and Down
, as well as the hit The Yellow Jacket'', performed at the Cort during 1916. The Cort then hosted several of
Shakespeare's plays in early 1918. The theater's final hit of the 1910s was
Abraham Lincoln, These included
Jim Jam Jems (1920), with
Joe E. Brown;
Captain Applejack (1921); with
Basil Rathbone and
Eva Le Gallienne. Other events of the early 1920s included a
seance performed by
John Armstrong Chaloner in 1921, as well as
benefit performances such as
Mu Lan (1921) and
Book of Job (1922). The theater had a series of short-lived productions in 1924. These were followed by another set of productions with short runs. A dispute arose in October 1925 when three producers sued each other, alleging that Cort had granted each of them the right to use the theater during the same time period. Judge
Thomas D. Thacher, of the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued two injunctions: one granting production rights to
Jane, Our Stranger, and another that canceled that production after four performances. Other hits of the mid-1920s included
The Jazz Singer, which was transferred to the Cort in late 1925, as well as
The Little Spitfire, which opened in 1926. The 1926 play
Beyond Evil, which discussed interracial marriage, nearly prompted a riot when it was performed at the Cort.
Shubert operation 1920s to 1960s in the Cort's 1930 production of
Uncle Vanya In May 1927, the Shubert Organization purchased the theater from Edward B. Corey, subject to a
mortgage of $210,000. The Shuberts took over the operation from Cort, who retired afterward.
Joseph Leblang and his representatives then operated the venue from August 1928 to December 1932. Subsequently, the theater hosted
A Most Immoral Lady in 1928 with
Alice Brady, as well as
Your Uncle Dudley in 1929 with
Walter Connolly. The Cort hosted
Jed Harris's revival of the play
Uncle Vanya in 1930, and a folk-song recital in 1930.
Richard Aldrich and Alfred De Liagre made their production debut in 1933 with
Three-Cornered Moon. Two hits followed:
The Green Bay Tree in 1933 and
Room Service (1937), Several major productions followed, including
The White Steed (1939), and
A Bell for Adano (1944). During 1946, the
Theatre Guild's Shakespearean Repertory Company appeared in ''
The Winter's Tale; and Estelle Winwood and Cornelia Otis Skinner starred in Lady Windermere's Fan. The Theatre Guild returned in 1950, and The Rainmaker (1954). The play Sunrise at Campobello opened in 1958 with Henry Jones, Mary Fickett, and Anne Seymour, as well as James Earl Jones in his Broadway debut; it had well over 500 performances. as well as Purlie Victorious and Sunday in New York in 1961.
In May 1962, the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden had a brief engagement with The Father,
Long Day's Journey into Night,
and Miss Julie in repertory. The next year saw a relatively unsuccessful adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; this was followed in 1965 by The Zulu and the Zayda''. The network spent $1 million on renovating the theater to convert it to a television studio. Meanwhile, CBS continued to lease the theater at a high price. Two years into CBS's lease, the construction of the neighboring 1211 Avenue of the Americas caused structural damage to the theater's interior, and two girders were placed on the eastern wall. Because the interior was no longer suitable for television productions, CBS decided to let the lease lapse. The CBS lease from 1969 to 1972 was the only period in which the Cort was used as a television studio rather than as a theater. The Cort then hosted
Rose in 1981;
Medea and
Twice Around the Park in 1982; and
A Moon for the Misbegotten and ''
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'' in 1984. Theatrical historian
Ken Bloom, observing several of the Cort's short performances, said: "The Cort's luck seems to have run out." The
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had started considering protecting the Cort as an official city landmark in 1982, with discussions continuing over the next several years. The LPC designated both the facade and the interior as landmarks on November 17, 1987. This was part of the LPC's wide-ranging effort in 1987 to grant landmark status to Broadway theaters. The
New York City Board of Estimate ratified the designations in March 1988. The Shuberts, the
Nederlanders, and
Jujamcyn collectively sued the LPC in June 1988 to overturn the landmark designations of 22 theaters, including the Cort, on the merit that the designations severely limited the extent to which the theaters could be modified. The lawsuit was escalated to the
New York Supreme Court and the
Supreme Court of the United States, but these designations were ultimately upheld in 1992. The Cort hosted the hit
The Grapes of Wrath in 1990, as well as
Lincoln Center Theater's short-lived production of
Two Shakespearean Actors in 1992. This was followed in 1994 by
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. which ran for over 300 performances.
Sex and Longing in 1996 and
An American Daughter in 1997. At the end of the decade, productions at the Cort included
Freak (1998),
The Blue Room (1998), and
Kat and the Kings (1999).
2000s and 2010s In 2000, the Cort hosted a short production of
The Green Bird.
A Year with Frog and Toad in 2003, and
Laugh Whore in 2004. As part of a settlement with the
United States Department of Justice in 2003, the Shuberts agreed to improve disabled access at their 16 landmarked Broadway theaters, including the Cort. The theater's other productions in the decade included
On Golden Pond (2005),
Barefoot in the Park and
The Little Dog Laughed (2006),
Radio Golf and
The Homecoming (2007),
The 39 Steps (2008), and ''
You're Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush
(2009). The Cort hosted Breakfast at Tiffany's in 2013, and No Man's Land and Waiting for Godot played in repertory the same year. Subsequently, The Cripple of Inishmaan and This is Our Youth played at the Cort in 2014, while Fish in the Dark and Sylvia played in 2015. The Shuberts acquired an adjacent garage to the west and demolished it in 2016. In 2017, the Shuberts received permission from the LPC to construct a 35-foot-wide annex west of the existing theater, designed by Kostow Greenwood Architects. Francesca Russo would also design a renovation of the existing theater. The Shuberts also received permission to transfer of air development rights to a 49-story hotel adjoining the theater; The Cort additionally showed two productions in 2017: Indecent and M. Butterfly. Mike Birbiglia performed his one-man comedy The New One
in 2018, and the productions of King Lear'' and
Derren Brown's one-man show
Secret were housed at the Cort in 2019.
2020s to present The theater
closed on March 12, 2020, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. During the shutdown, in March 2021, the Shuberts announced that the Cort would be refurbished and the annex would be built. JRM Construction was hired as the
general contractor for the project.
The Minutes, which had only played
previews at the Cort before the shutdown, During the COVID-19 shutdown, the Shuberts, Nederlanders, and Jujamcyn had pledged to increase racial and cultural diversity in their theaters, including naming at least one theater for a Black theatrical personality. Accordingly, in March 2022, the Shuberts announced that the Cort would be renamed after actor
James Earl Jones and would be rededicated upon its reopening in mid-2022. The Jones was the second Broadway theater to be named after a Black theatrical personality. In August 2022, it was announced that the Jones would reopen that November with previews of the play
Ohio State Murders. The James Earl Jones Theatre's marquee was revealed on September 12, 2022, celebrating the completion of the theater's $47 million renovation and expansion.
Ohio State Murders officially opened in December 2022 as the renamed theater's first show, running for one month. This was scheduled to be followed in April 2023 by
Room, which was postponed indefinitely during rehearsals. Instead, ''
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window opened at the theater that April. It was followed by a limited run of Gutenberg! The Musical! in October 2023, then by the original run of the musical The Heart of Rock and Roll in April 2024 and the play Left on Tenth in October 2024. The musical Real Women Have Curves opened at the Jones in April 2025 and was followed that October by a transfer of the Off-Broadway play Liberation. A stage adaptation of the documentary The Fear of 13'' opened at the Jones in April 2026. == Notable productions ==