Music Box Theatre (Broadway)

This lovely theatre on West Forty-fifth Street, which Moss Hart described as everyone's dream of a theatre, celebrated its seventieth birthday on September 22, 1991. Never once in its six decades has its elegant limestone facade been marred by a movie or burlesque marquee.

The Music Box was built by the late producer Sam H. Harris and composer Irving Berlin to house a series of lavish Music Box Revues to be composed by Mr. Berlin. The composer's estate now co-owns the theatre with the Shubert Organization.

On September 22, 1921, the resplendent theatre, designed by C. Howard Cre, opened with the first "Music Box Revue," starring Mr. Berlin, Sam Bernard, Florence Moore, Joseph Santley, and--in the chorus--young Miriam Hopkins. The critics raved about the show and the new theatre, but it was the show's comic, Sam Bernard, who best described the opulent Four editions of the Music Box Revue, starring such luminaries as Fanny Brice, Grace Moore, Bobby Clark, Robert Benchley, and Charlotte Greenwood, brought fame to Berlin and the Music Box. In 1925 the theatre departed from its revue-only policy to present a smash hit comedy called Cradle Snatchers, starring Mary Boland, Humphrey Bogart, Edna May Oliver, and Raymond Guion (later Gene Raymond of the movies). Other Music Box Hits in the 1920's include: "Chicago,"1926, later made into a sucessful musical, "The Spider," (1927), a clever thriller that moved here from the 46th Street Theatre; Philip Barry's charming comedy, "Paris Bound" (1927); Cole Porter's "Paris" (1928); and the last Music Box show of the 1920s, the historic intimate revue "The Little Show"(1929), starring Clifton Webb, Fred Allen, and Libby Holman.

The Music Box faced the depression with elan. "Topaze," a French comedy starring Frank Morgan, was a hit in early 1930, followed by the famed satire "Once in a Lifetime," the first collaboration of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. In 1931, Beatrice Lillie graced the Music Box in "The Third Little Show," in which she introduced Noel Coward's celebrated song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" to American audiences.

On December 26, 1931, "Of Thee I Sing" marched into the Music Box and became the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. The musical had a biting book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, memorable music by George Gershwin, and stinging lyrics by his brother Ira. William Gaxton played President John P. Wintergreen, Victor Moore was the mousy Vice-President Alexander Throttlebottom, and George Murphy played a featured role. The show became the longest-running book musical in the 1930s.

George S. Kaufman (with Edna Ferber) brought another hit to the Music Box in 1932. "Dinner at Eight" was a fascinating comedy about a socialite's problems in arranging a dinner for British royalty, who cancel their appearance at the last moment. The play examined the lives of all those invited to the dinner. During its run, the rising star Margaret Sullavan joined the cast as a replacement. The comedy ran for 232 performances and was later made into a hit MGM classic with an all-star cast.

The Music Box really struck it rich with its next tenant. Irving Berlin and Moss Hart teamed to create a topical revue that would use newspaper headlines to satirize celebrities of that era. The show was called "As Thousands Cheer" and it starred Marilyn Miller, Clifton Webb, Helen Broderick, and Ethel Waters, who stopped the show at every performance with "Heat Wave," "Harlem on My Mind, " and "Supper Time." The revue ran for 400 performances at the Music Box and was one of the biggest hits of the depression.

Kaufman and Hart once again joined forces to write the next Music Box show: "Merrily We Roll Along" (1934). This unusual comedy started in the present and went backwards in time.

Five shows played the Music Box in 1935. Tallulah Bankhead in a revival of "Rain"; a hit melodrama about pilots, "Ceiling Zero," starring Osgood Perkins (Anthony's illustrious father); a prophetic drama, "If This Be Treason," in which the United States and Japan almost engaged in war; a successful adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice;" and George S. Kaufman and Katherine Dayton's political comedy "First Lady," starring the noted actress Jane Cowl playing a role said to be inspired by Alice Longworth Roosevelt.

Margaret Sullavan, now a big Hollywood star, returned to the Music Box in 1936 in "Stage Door," by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Set in the Foot-Lights Club (modeled on the actual Rehearsal Club in Manhattan), the play presented a group of aspiring actresses who live in a popular boarding house for young theatricals. One of the characters--a radical playwright named Keith Burgess--was said to be based on the Group Theatre's Clifford Odets.

"Young Madam Conti" (1937), starring Constance Cummings, was one of the theatre's lesser tenants, but this melodrama was followed by John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" in 1937, starring Wallace Ford, Broderick Crawford, and Claire Luce and directed by George S. Kaufman. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as best play of the season.

Although George M. Cohan as President Roosevelt in "I'd Rather Be Right" opened at the Alvin Theatre in 1937, it ended its successful run at the Music Box. The satirical political musical by Kaufman and Hart, with a score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, dared to portray a living president who was still in the White House when the show opened. Mr. Cohan garnered raves for his good-natured performance and the show was one of the season's top tickets.

In September 1938 Kaufman and Hart came to the Music Box in a new guise. In association with Max Gordon, they presented a topical musical revue called "Sing Out the News," by Harold Rome and Charles Friedman. The revue perfectly suited the Music Box tradition of topical satire, but was only moderately successful.

In 1939 two more revues graced the house. One of them, "Set to Music," by Noel Coward and starring Beatrice Lillie, was the type of sophisticated revue for which the Music Box was built and a genre of entertainment that would become almost obsolete after World War II. The opening night was celebrity-studded and was the kind of glittering first night that would become rare in years to come. "Set to Music" was followed by a charming entertainment called "From Vienna" (1939), a revue featuring performers who were Viennese refugees.

It is fitting that the last show to play the Music Box in the 1930s was another satire by Kaufman and Hart. Both were close friends of the obese, waspish, self-promoting critic, author, and radio celebrity Alexander Woollcott, and they wrote a classic comedy about what would happen if someone like him (called Sheridan Whiteside in the play) slipped on the ice while visiting a family and had to stay there with a broken hip. Called "The Man Who Came to Dinner," this comedy of outrages and insults starred Monty Woolley as Whiteside and also caricatured such luminaries as Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Harpo Marx. The comedy proved to be the Music Box's longest-running show at that time, playing for 739 performances.

World War II brought a change in audience tastes on Broadway. The revue form and plays that satirized celebrities soon began to vanish. The last revue to play the Music Box for many years to come was Mike Todd's rowdy "Star and Garter," starring strippers Gypsy Rose Lee and Georgia Southern and low comics Bobby Clark, Pat Harrington, and Professor Lamberti. The critics were not overjoyed with the burlesque, but audiences loved the show and it ran for 605 performances.

After "Star and Garter" closed at the Music Box, there was a definite change in the house's fare. For the next four decades, only three musicals were housed there: "Lost in the Stars" (1949); "Rainbow Jones" (1974); and "Side by Side" by Sondheim (1977). One of the reasons for the lack of musical bookings was that the theatre's 1,000-seat capacity was no longer considered adequate for an expensive musical show.

During the past four decades, the Music Box has thrived on romantic comedies, usually with small casts, and dramas. "I Remember Mama" (1944) starred Mady Christians and Oscar Homolka, with a young Marlon Brando making his Broadway debut. This was followed by Tennessee Williams's "Summer and Smoke" (1948); "Lost in the Stars," by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson (1949); and "Affairs of State," a light comedy starring Celeste Holm that moved from the Royale to the Music Box.

Beginning in 1953 playwright William Inge inaugurated his happy association with this theatre. Over the next five years, he was to have three solid hits in the house: "Picnic" (1953) (Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics Circle Award); "Bus Stop" (1955); and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1957).

Other 1950s hits included a revival of "The Male Animal;" Josephine Hull in "The Solid Gold Cadillac" (moved from the Belasco); "Separate Tables" (1956), starring Margaret Leighton and Eric Portman; Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom in "Rashomon" (1959); Cornelia Otis Skinner, Cyril Ritchard, Walter Abel, Charlie Ruggles, and George Peppard in "The Pleasure of His Company" (from the Longacre Theatre); and "Five Finger Exercise" (1959), with Jessica Tandy and Brian Bedford.

In 1961 "A Far Country" presented Steven Hill as Sigmund Freud and Kim Stanley as his patient in Henry Denker's case study; in 1962, Bert Lahr convulsed theatregoers playing numerous roles in S.J. Perelman's "The Beauty Part." More laughter followed in 1963 when Gertrude Berg starred in "Dear Me, The Sky is Falling." Sandy Dennis, Gene Hackman, Rosemary Murphy, and Don Porter came to the Music Box in February 1964 in "Any Wednesday," and the comedy stayed for 983 performances, the record holder for this theatre at that time.

Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming" chilled patrons in 1967, followed by Gig Young in the British comedy "There's a Girl in My Soup." On November 12, 1970, Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth" opened with Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter and played for a record-breaking 1,222 performances. The following year, the Music Box celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, and Irving Berlin was photographed by the New York Times proudly standing before the theatre. Mr. Berlin stated that he and the Shubert Organization were constantly refurbishing the theatre.

Absurd Person Singular, the British import, amused capacity audiences in 1974 with such stars as Geraldine Page, Richard Kiley, Larry Blyden, Carole Shelley, Sandy Dennis, and Tony Roberts. A revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" arrived in 1976, followed by the British play Comedians and the delightful portfolio of Sondheim songs "Side by Side" by Sondheim (1977). Then, in 1978, came John Wood and Marian Seldes in Ira Levin's marathon thriller "Deathtrap." The comedy murder mystery had such an original plot that theatregoers attended it for 1,609 performances, making it the Music Box's champion attraction. Finally, in 1982, stark drama returned to the Music Box with "Agnes of God," starring Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Ashley, and Amanda Plummer, who won a Tony Award for her performance. The religious drama played for 599 performances.

In 1985, a delightful revival of Noel Coward's amusing trifle "Hay Fever" won approval for its sterling cast headed by Rosemary Harris, Roy Dotrice, Mia Dillon and Charles Kimbrough. The following year, another revival, "Loot," by Joe Orton, also gained applause for hilarious performances by Joseph Maher, Zeljko Ivanek, Zoe Caldwell and Alec Baldwin in his Broadway debut. Mary Tyler Moore starred here in A.R. Gurney, Jr.'s comedy "Sweet Sue" (1987) and this was followed by a British hit, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Christopher Hampton, given a stunning production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1988, this theatre housed an off-beat musical, Mail, followed by Kate Nelligan in a play by Michael Weller, "Spoils of War." Cy Coleman's musical "Welcome to the Club" came here in 1989 and later that year, "A Few Good Men," an explosive military drama by Aaron Sorkin enjoyed a long run. Julie Harris starred in "Lucifer's Child," a one-woman show about the Danish author Isak Dinesen (1991); Jason Robards and Judith Ivey starred in "Park Your Car in Harvard Yard" (1991) followed by Alan Ayckbourn's "A Small Family Business" (1992) and the British musical "Blood Brothers" by Willy Russell (1993).

The most recent tenants of this theatre have been Festen; In My Life; Primo; Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Amour; Fortune’s Fool, Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party; Amadeus; Closer; The Diary of Anne Frank; Christopher Plummer (Tony Award) in Barrymore; State Fair; and Swinging on a Star.

Morton Gottlieb, who produced "Sleuth at the Music Box," summed up Broadway's feeling about this theatre when he said, "It is the best looking house on Broadway. When you come in--it shines!" annew house: "It stinks from class."

Theatre Information:
239 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036
US

Public Transportation:
SUBWAY: Take the N,Q,R,W or 1,2,3,9 to 42nd Street, walk North on Broadway to 45th Street and walk West on 45th Street to the theatre; Take the A,C,E to 42nd Street, walk North on Eight Avenue to 45th Street and walk East on 45th Street to the theatre.

Handicap Access:
ACCESS INTO THEATRE: Theatre is not completely wheelchair accessible. There are no steps into the theatre from the sidewalk. Please be advised that where there are steps either into or within the theatre, we are unable to provide assistance. ORCHESTRA LOCATION: Seating is accessible to all parts of the Orchestra without steps. Wheelchair seating is available in the Orchestra only. MEZZANINE LOCATION: Located up 2 flights of stairs (38 steps). Once on the Mezzanine level there are approximately two steps down per row. Entrance to the Mezzanine is behind row L. RESTROOM: Wheelchair accessible (main floor). Additional restrooms are located down one flight of steps (29 steps in Lower Lounge) and up one flight (19 steps in Mezzanine).

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