New Amsterdam Theatre

The New Amsterdam Theatre is at 214 West 42nd Street, between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue near the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The land lot is irregularly shaped and covers , extending between its two frontages on 41st and 42nd Streets. Originally, the 42nd Street frontage was only wide; the developers, Abraham L. Erlanger and Marcus Klaw, wanted the more prominent 42nd Street frontage as the main entrance. The lots comprising the site had previously been owned by Samuel McMillan and the Johnson estate. The surrounding area is part of Manhattan's Theater District and contains many Broadway theaters. In the first two decades of the 20th century, eleven venues for legitimate theater were built within one block of West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. These venues were mostly converted to movie theaters by the 1930s, and many of them had been relegated to showing pornography by the 1970s. ==Design==

The New Amsterdam Theatre was designed by architects Herts & Tallant and developed for Klaw and Erlanger from 1902 to 1903. It was built by the George A. Fuller Company. The facade is designed in the Beaux-Arts style and the theater's interior is an early example of architectural Art Nouveau in New York City. Decoration was carried out by more than a dozen artists. The decorative scheme predominantly depicted three topics: the history of New York City prior to 1903, including its original history as the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam; the history of theater; and the floral and foliage motifs often seen in theaters. The design also included elements of classicism. The theater consists of a 10-story tower with offices, on the narrow 42nd Street frontage, The tower was developed to house Klaw and Erlanger's booking activities. The two sections are connected by a one-story passageway at ground level. The New Amsterdam Theatre's building housed two theaters when it opened: the main 41st Street auditorium as well as a rooftop theater. Facade The primary elevation of the facade, on 42nd Street, is made of gray limestone with a steeply pitched roof made of red tile. The theater's entrance is a triple-height segmental arch; the stories above contain offices. The office wing measures tall. The 41st Street elevation contains the stage doors and is clad with plain brick, since the architects thought the public would seldom see that elevation. The side walls of the office wing on 42nd Street are also constructed of brick because the architects had anticipated that high-rise buildings would be constructed on either side. Fire escapes are placed across the theater wing's exterior on 41st Street. Theater entrance On 42nd Street, the triple-height arch had rusticated stone piers on either side. The sign was ornately decorated and, at night, was illuminated by lights on the upper stories. The arch at the second and third stories was initially highly decorated, but the decorations were all removed in 1937 to make way for a marquee. At the second floor were yellow-and-gray Montreal marble columns. Cupid (symbolizing love comedy) and a woman stood on one side of the central figure, a female personification of drama; Pierrot (symbolizing musical farce) and a knight stood on the other side. since they felt such a feature was unsuitable for office buildings. Interior The New Amsterdam Theatre was among the first non-high-rise buildings in New York City with a steel superstructure. According to a 1903 source, the frame is made of approximately 270,000 steel pieces, which required about 7,500 engineering drawings. There were originally also 57 cantilevers and 38 electric lifts (including elevators). The theater was also mechanically advanced for its time, with heating, cooling, and vacuum-cleaning systems, as well as a fireproof structural frame. The auditorium alone had a volume of and was indirectly heated by fans in the subbasement. The ventilation system included air plenums on 41st Street, a fan, a silk filter, and a heater that moistened the air to natural levels of humidity. The air could be completely changed in ten minutes. and it was exhausted through disc fans above the auditorium. Three telephone systems were installed to allow communications between different parts of the theater. These mechanical systems were completely replaced between 1995 and 1997. Lobby Leading from the 42nd Street entrance vestibule is the lobby, which runs under the office wing; the space contains curving Art Nouveau-style floral motifs. The eastern (or left) wall contains bronze office and elevator doors. There are mirrored panels above the marble on the western (right) wall. Foyers The lobby leads south to the auditorium's entrance foyer. Within the north wall of the foyer, above the doors from the lobby, is a semicircular plaster relief by Hugh Tallant, depicting progress. This design includes a blue-and-gold representation of a woman with flower and leaf decorations on either side. The promenade foyer contains a groin vault with floral moldings. A sylvan-themed relief by Issing is at the southern end of the promenade foyer, leading to 41st Street. On the east wall of the promenade foyer, there are two sets of staircases, which lead up to the balconies and down to the lounges. The stairs are made of green-veined Maryland Cremo marble. On the north and south walls, George Peixotto designed two symbolic paintings entitled "Inspiration" and "Creation". The rear (east) wall of the reception room has a fireplace with a Caen stone and Irish marble mantel, also decorated with curving foliate patterns. Originally, 38 medallions with painted portraits, designed by William Frazee Strunz and depicting "Lovers of Historical Drama" were embedded into the paneling. There is a fireplace at one corner of the room, with a mantel of Caen stone and gray-washed brick. An inscription surrounds the dome's base, with the words "I had rather a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad", a line from the Shakespeare comedy As You Like It. The old smoking room was converted into a bar during the 1990s. The space measures wide, and it is long between the stage apron and the reception room's wall. The dome rises above the floor of the orchestra. The original color scheme was described in The New York Times as consisting of "tender pinks, mauves, lilacs, red and gold". These decorations were bright to compensate for the original direct current lighting system, which was dim. The modern decorative scheme contains reproductions of many of the original decorations with a subdued color palette. A double wall surrounds the whole auditorium and contains a fire gallery measuring wide. The auditorium held around 1,550 seats in its original configuration. After its reopening in 1997, the auditorium had 1,814 seats; , the New Amsterdam has a seating capacity of 1,702. There are wheelchair-accessible seating areas in the orchestra and in the first balcony (also called the mezzanine). The second balcony is recessed from the mezzanine and is suspended directly from the ceiling via tension rods. At the orchestra and balcony levels, the lower sections of the walls have carved-oak wainscoting. The auditorium initially had twelve seating boxes, six on either side of the stage; so the boxes were often identified by the names of the flowers on them. At the time of the New Amsterdam's construction in 1903, this was the largest piece of steel ever used in a building. A two-story-deep area was excavated below the stage to accommodate this. Four hydraulic platforms, each measuring , could raise or lower different parts of the stage. and the stage floor could be tilted. Accessed by two elevators from the lobby, and originally had 680 seats. It could theoretically be used year-round, but in practice it was only used during the summer. There was also a planted garden adjacent to the theater. After Florenz Ziegfeld started hosting the Ziegfeld Follies at the New Amsterdam in 1913, the main floor of the roof theater was turned into a dance floor, and a U-shaped balcony was erected. The redesigned roof theater had a movable stage and a glass balcony. Cross lighting could also be used to create rainbow color patterns. The floor was soundproofed when the space was used as an NBC broadcast studio, and smaller studios were placed in the office wing. By the early 21st century, the roof theater had been converted into office space. ==History==

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. The New Amsterdam, Lyceum, and Hudson, which all opened in 1903, were among the first theaters to make this shift; the New Amsterdam is one of the oldest surviving Broadway theaters. Furthermore, at the beginning of the 20th century, Klaw and Erlanger operated the predominant theatrical booking agency in the United States. They decided to relocate to 42nd Street after observing that the Metropolitan Opera House, the Victoria Theatre, and the Theatre Republic (now New Victory Theater) had been developed around that area. By then, the venue had been named the New Amsterdam, after the Dutch colonial settlement that predated New York City. Construction had commenced by May 1902. Eighteen steam drills and 150 workers excavated the foundation to a depth of . A controversy arose in early 1903 when a neighboring landowner, Samuel McMillan, discovered that the office wing on 42nd Street would protrude beyond the lot line. A meeting on the ordinance drew much public opposition, prompting Low to send the bill back to the Board of Aldermen. A judge placed an injunction in April 1903, preventing Low from making a decision on the ordinance. The injunction was vacated two days afterward, and Low vetoed the resolution. The Board of Aldermen passed a revised resolution the next week; the aldermen explicitly stated that the ordinance would help Klaw and Erlanger. After the ordinance was passed, the New Amsterdam's facade was completed as planned. At the beginning of that August, the steel structure was topped out. The dispute over the facade continued even after the theater's opening. In 1905, McMillan brought the lawsuit to the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, which ruled that the Board of Aldermen's ordinance violated the Constitution of New York. Original Broadway run 1900s and early 1910s The New Amsterdam Theatre opened on October 26, 1903, with Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was a failure despite costing five times as much as the typical Broadway show. In its first few months of operation, the theater also hosted Whoop Dee Doo, a musical by Weber and Fields. The new theater was chronicled in various publications. Architects' and Builders' Magazine wrote that "the character of the decoration fixes more or less the purpose of the house", New York Plaisance'' magazine called it "a most beautiful and commodious place of amusement"; The Aerial Gardens opened on June 6, 1904, with the vaudeville production A Little of Everything. The New Amsterdam had started out as a venue for serious drama, Klaw and Erlanger had begun renting out the New Amsterdam, since they wanted to focus on other theatrical ventures, and since it was expensive for them to produce all of the theater's shows. The men disagreed over the theater's bookings; Klaw wanted to stage classical productions, but Erlanger preferred large revues and musicals. The next year, the theater hosted Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, featuring Fay Templeton and Victor Moore, as well as ''The Governor's Son, starring the family of George M. Cohan. This was followed in 1907 by The Merry Widow, which ran 416 performances and Peer Gynt. Kitty Grey, starring Julia Sanderson, was staged at the New Amsterdam in 1909, as was the European operetta The Silver Star. and the European operetta Madame Sherry, the latter of which ran 231 performances. The next year saw a production of The Pink Lady with Hazel Dawn, running 312 performances, as well as the musical adaptation of Ben-Hur. The New Amsterdam hosted several other productions in 1912 and 1913, including Robin Hood, The Count of Luxembourg, and Oh! Oh! Delphine''. Ziegfeld Follies era Flo Ziegfeld hosted the Ziegfeld Follies, a series of revues, at the New Amsterdam every year from 1913 to 1927, with two exceptions. Ziegfeld's relationship with Klaw and Erlanger had dated to the mid-1900s, when the syndicate had paid him $200 a week to present vaudeville; by 1907, he had come up with the Follies. The first edition of the Follies at the New Amsterdam was hosted on June 16, 1913. Among the performers in the Follies were Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, W. C. Fields, Ina Claire, Marilyn Miller, Will Rogers, Sophie Tucker, Bert Williams, and Van and Schenck. Ziegfeld hired either Joseph Urban With the completion of the roof theater's renovation, Ziegfeld began displaying Danse de Follies, a racier sister show of the Follies, in 1915. Subsequently, known as the Midnight Frolic, the show was also used to test the skills of promising up-and-coming performers. The 1924 edition of the Follies had the longest run, with 401 performances, though that edition was not particularly distinctive either critically or artistically. Between each year's edition of the Follies, the theater hosted other productions. and Hazel Dawn starred in The Little Cafe the same year. The musical Watch Your Step premiered at the New Amsterdam in 1914, featuring Irving Berlin's first complete Broadway score; A performance of Around the Map was staged in 1915. The following year, Sir Herbert Tree and Company staged several Shakespeare plays, and Guy Bolton and Emmerich Kálmán's musical Miss Springtime ran 224 performances. The Cohan Revue of 1918 was then staged at the New Amsterdam, followed the same year by The Rainbow Girl and The Girl Behind the Gun. The decade ended with The Velvet Lady, as well as a musical version of Monsieur Beaucaire, in 1919. The New Amsterdam staged Sally, where Marilyn Miller had her musical comedy debut, in 1920; it ran for 570 performances. The Midnight Frolic was popular but, because it offered alcoholic beverages, closed during Prohibition in 1921 or 1922. The rooftop theater became the Frolic Theatre in September 1923 and was operated by Ziegfeld and Charles Dillingham. During the mid- and late 1920s, the main auditorium hosted several plays. In 1925, the musical Sunny opened, ultimately running 517 performances; by contrast, Betsy opened the next year and was a failure with 39 performances. The main auditorium's productions in 1927 included Lucky, ''Trelawny of the 'Wells', and Julius Caesar. The Frolic, meanwhile, hosted a performance of He Loved the Ladies during one week in 1927; one of the seven showings had no audience members at all. The same year, Ziegfeld developed his own theater, the Ziegfeld Theatre on Sixth Avenue. which ran 327 performances, and Whoopee, which ran 379 performances. Meanwhile, Ziegfeld re-launched the Midnight Frolic'' at the rooftop theater in December 1928. Erlanger announced in June 1929 that he would convert the rooftop theater into a modern facility called Aerial Theater, which would accommodate legitimate plays, films with sound, or radio broadcasts. Upon obtaining sole ownership of the theater, Erlanger renewed Dillingham and Ziegfeld's lease, which had been set to expire at the end of 1929. Another production was staged at the main auditorium in 1929, Sherlock Holmes. Erlanger was in significant debt when he died in 1930, and the Dry Dock Savings Bank took over his estate. In the 1930s, during the beginning of the Great Depression, many Broadway theaters were impacted by declining attendance. The main auditorium only saw a small decrease in quality and quantity of productions, but the Frolics Theatre had a steep decline in premieres. and converted it into a broadcast studio, the NBC Times Square Studio, which opened the next month. The modifications cost $70,000. A revival of The Admirable Crichton and the original revue The Band Wagon followed in 1931, as did Face the Music in 1932. After Face the Music closed at the end of 1932, the theater had no musical premiere for the first time in its history. During early 1933, the musicals Alice in Wonderland and The Cherry Orchard had limited runs at the New Amsterdam, presented by Eva Le Gallienne and her Civic Repertory Theater. Murder at the Vanities premiered in late 1933 and was followed by Roberta the same year, the latter of which was a hit with 295 performances. When Revenge with Music premiered at the New Amsterdam in 1934, it was the only remaining legitimate theater production on 42nd Street. Revenge with Music was followed by ''George White's Scandals'' of 1936, as well as Sigmund Romberg's Forbidden Melody the same year. The Dry Dock Savings Bank acquired the New Amsterdam Theatre through a foreclosure proceeding in May 1936 after the theater's owners had failed to pay over $1.65 million in interest, taxes, and other fees. By then, Erlanger and Ziegfeld had died several years previously. The broadcasters had to apply for a license after Dry Dock unsuccessfully sued to have the injunction removed. Othello, which premiered in January 1937, was the last live performance at the New Amsterdam for more than half a century; Movie theater and decline , Flo Ziegfeld's former agent, lamented in The New York Times that the cinema conversion was "another indication that the old order has indeed changed". The theater showed other movies for 10 to 25 cents per ticket, although Cohen could not show first runs of movies immediately upon their release, at least not initially. MBS continued to use the rooftop theater as a studio. The Cinema Circuit Corporation leased the roof theater in April 1943, showing movies at the 740-seat facility only on weekends. That November, the roof theater hosted a ten-week roster of small plays. The roof studio was leased in 1949 to television station WOR-TV, which spent $75,000 to remodel the roof theater and $20,000 on equipment. The renovated rooftop studio started broadcasting in October 1949. In subsequent years, the roof theater was used for rehearsals, and the main auditorium became a profitable cinema. In 1960, Mark Finkelstein, who co-owned the theater building with Cohen, announced that the roof theater would be renovated into a 700-seat venue for theatrical productions. The following year, Finkelstein and Andour Enterprises Inc. were listed as having purchased the building outright. Cohen retired around the same time, and Finkelstein took over full operation. Later in the 1960s, a critic characterized the roof theater as a "gloomy cavern" and the main auditorium as "just another in the dubious string of 42nd Street movie houses". By the late 1970s, the New Amsterdam Theatre was dilapidated, though many of the interior decorations still remained. The area had become dangerous: two armed guards were killed at the theater during a robbery in 1976, The cinema continued to run until about 1982 Restoration The 42nd Street Development Corporation, formed in 1976 to discuss plans for redeveloping Times Square, considered turning the New Amsterdam Theatre into a dance complex in 1977. The same year, the City University of New York's Graduate Center hosted an exhibition with photographs of the New Amsterdam and other theaters to advocate for the area's restoration. Another plan, in 1978, called for restoring the New Amsterdam as a legitimate theater while razing nearby buildings to create a park. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the New Amsterdam Theatre and a portion of its interior as a city landmark on October 23, 1979. The theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 10, 1980. Nederlander plans The New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), an agency of the New York state government, had proposed redeveloping the area around a portion of West 42nd Street in 1981. Theatrical operator Nederlander Organization tried to buy the New Amsterdam Theatre from Finkelstein in early 1982, before the city and state governments selected developers for the sites, but was unsuccessful. The city government selected the Nederlander Organization in April 1982 to operate the New Amsterdam Theatre, and the Nederlanders bought the rights to operate the theater in December 1982. The theater was technically owned by the New York City Industrial Development Corporation, which issued $5 million in bonds to finance the acquisition. The Nederlanders were responsible for developing the theater, paying off the bonds, and making $250,000 in annual payments in lieu of taxes. Plans for restoration were officially announced in May 1983. The $6 million project would use both private and public funding. Robert Nederlander of the Nederlander Organization had wanted to continue hosting motion pictures while the redevelopment was underway, but the city government denied his proposal. This led the Nederlanders to announce in mid-1983 that the reopening would be delayed indefinitely. The Empire State Development Corporation and New York City Economic Development Corporation purchased the property in 1984. The same year, Jerry Weintraub purchased a stake in the operation of the New Amsterdam. The theater's renovation had been planned in conjunction with four new office towers, the development of which had been delayed. After having spent $15 million on renovations, the Nederlanders announced in 1990 that the New Amsterdam's restoration would not be viable "for the next several years" until the four office towers were completed. but decided against doing so. Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (HHPA) was hired to stabilize the structure. Disney renovation Marian Sulzberger Heiskell, a chairwoman of the 42nd Street Development Project, was a family friend of Michael Eisner, the chairman of The Walt Disney Company. For several years in the 1980s and 1990s, Heiskell had tried to convince Eisner to open a Disney enterprise on Times Square. Disney's internal studies showed that such a venue would conflict with the gated and clean image of its amusement parks and other venues. Architect Robert A. M. Stern, who had worked both on Disney projects and on the 42nd Street Development, tried to convince Eisner but was rebuffed. In March 1993, Eisner changed his mind and asked to see a full-size model of the buildings being planned in the 42nd Street Development. Stern arranged for Eisner to tour the theater. Eisner quickly agreed to renovate the theater after New 42nd Street president Cora Cahan guided him through the dilapidated interior. Disney had planned to show Beauty and the Beast there, but delays forced the production to open at the Palace Theatre instead. Disney had tentatively agreed to take over the New Amsterdam by the end of the year, and mayor Rudy Giuliani and governor Mario Cuomo publicly announced plans for the theater's restoration in January 1994. After Cuomo promised to create a loan program for other Broadway theaters, two operators dropped their opposition to Disney's project. In February 1994, Disney promised to renovate the theater with $8 million of its own equity and a $21 million low-interest loan from the city and state governments. Other entertainment companies showed interest in the 42nd Street redevelopment after the agreement was announced, and there was also interest in renovating 42nd Street's other theaters. During 1994, the rundown theater was used as a filming location for the movie Vanya on 42nd Street. Officials agreed to loan Disney another $5 million later that year. in which Disney would pay the city and state a percentage of the gross sales from the theater. Disney wanted at least two other companies to commit to new developments in Times Square before it agreed to restore the New Amsterdam. Madame Tussauds and AMC Theatres subsequently agreed to redevelop three neighboring theaters. Disney's research and development subsidiary, Walt Disney Imagineering, oversaw the renovation of the New Amsterdam Theatre, hiring design firm Theatre Projects Consultants as a consultant. Some mockups of the decorations were created before work commenced. Conservators took a paint chip sample from a billboard outside the building and discovered 121 layers of paint, each for a different event. According to Hugh Hardy of HHPA, the project entailed recreating half the oak paneling and three-quarters of the plaster decoration, as well as the restoration of other decorations and the installation of new mechanical systems. Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote "If this is Disney magic, we need more of it", The first production was a limited engagement of a concert version of King David that May, followed by the premiere of the film Hercules the following month. Disney's decision to stage these events was to ensure the New Amsterdam's restoration would not be overshadowed by the premiere of The Lion King, which in itself was a highly acclaimed production. The Lion King opened in November 1997. The roof theater remained closed, and Disney had no plans to reopen it, in part because the elevators could not accommodate 700 patrons under city building codes. Disney had converted the roof theater into office space by the early 21st century. The renovation of the theater was detailed in the book The New Amsterdam: The Biography of a Broadway Theater. '' at the New Amsterdam Theatre Disney's restoration of the New Amsterdam Theatre helped spur the long-delayed redevelopment of Times Square; this led to criticisms of the area's "Disneyfication" from observers who were unaware of Disney's investment. Besides theatrical productions, the revived New Amsterdam has hosted events benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, including past iterations of the annual Easter Bonnet Competition. It also hosted a televised concert by the Backstreet Boys for Disney Channel, Backstreet Boys In Concert, in 1998, and a single performance of the musical Chess in 2003. Mary Poppins began previews at the New Amsterdam on October 14, 2006, and had its first regular performance on November 16, 2006; it ran until March 3, 2013. Previews for the musical Aladdin began on February 26, 2014, and the show officially opened on March 20, 2014. Aladdin broke the house record at the New Amsterdam Theatre for the week ending August 10, 2014, with a gross of $1,602,785. , Aladdin also holds the box-office record for the New Amsterdam Theatre, grossing $2,584,549 over nine performances for the week ending December 30, 2018. All Broadway theaters temporarily closed on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The New Amsterdam reopened September 28, 2021, with performances of Aladdin, which played its 4,000th performance at the theater in May 2025. ==Notable productions==

Productions are listed by the year of their first performance. The Ziegfeld Follies, which have had multiple editions, are listed by the years of the first performances of each edition. This list only includes Broadway shows; it does not include films screened there. ==See also==