Vivian Beaumont Theater (Broadway)

The Vivian Beaumont Theater opened on October 21, 1965. The building encompasses two performing spaces, both named for prominent New York philanthropists: the 1,100-seat Vivian Beaumont Theater and the 299-seat Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (called The Forum until 1973). In 1996, both theatres underwent an $8 million renovation to improve acoustics, to increase access for the disabled and to upgrade the building's infrastructure.

Since July 1985 the not-for-profit company Lincoln Center Theater has operated the Beaumont and Newhouse. Currently under the direction of André Bishop and Bernard Gersten, LCT’s recent Beaumont productions have been Henry IV, King Lear, Dinner at Eight, Our Town, Contact, Barbara Cook in Mostly Sondheim, Q.E.D., Marie Christine, Parade, Twelfth Night, A View from the Bridge, Ivanov, Racing Demon, Arcadia, Carousel, Gray’s Ana tomy, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, My Favorite Year and Four Baboons Adoring the Sun. Recent Newhouse shows were A Bad Friend, Ten Unknowns, Sarafina, A New Brain, A Man of No Importance, A Fair Country, Twelve Dreams, Hapgood, SubUrbia, The Sisters Rosensweig and The Substance of Fire.

From 1985 to 1992 when Gregory Mosher was Director and Bernard Gersten was Executive Producer, Beaumont productions included Six Degrees of Separation, Monster in a Box, Some Americans Abroad, The Tenth Man, Anything Goes, The Comedy of Errors, The Regard of Flight, Death and the King's Horseman, Waiting for Godot, The Front Page and The House of Blue Leaves.

LCT's Newhouse program from 1985 to 1992 included Mr. Gogol and Mr. Preen; Oh, Hell; Ubu; Measure for Measure; Waiting for Godot; I'll Go On; Boys' Life; Sarafina!; Danger: Memory!; Bodies, Rest, and Motion; The Transposed Heads; the "Woza Afrika!" Festival; Terrors of Pleasure; The Flying Karamazov Brothers; and Prairie du Chien & The Shawl.

The Beaumont has had several prior managements and some periods of inactivity. From 1979 to 1984 Richmond Crinkley was Executive Director of the Vivian Beaumont Theater Inc., which presented only one season in 1980-81 that included The Philadelphia Story, Macbeth and The Floating Light Bulb. In 1983 the Beaumont was rented out for Peter Brook's La Tragédie de Carmen, while Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater appeared in And A Nightingale Sang. . . at the Newhouse.

Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival was in residence from 1973 to 1977. The NYSF's offerings included new plays (Boom Boom Room, Streamers and Short Eyes), as well as revivals of Hamlet with Sam Waterston, Three Penny Opera with Raul Julia and The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep.

The Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, active from 1963 until 1973, was the Beaumont's first tenant. Its first two seasons‹with Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead as co-directors‹were presented downtown at the ANTA/Washington Square, a temporary structure erected while the Beaumont was under construction.

In 1965, when the Repertory Theater moved into the Beaumont, it gained new management: co-directors Herbert Blau and Jules Irving. Their inaugural Beaumont production was George Buchner's Danton's Death, with James Earl Jones, followed by plays by William Wycherley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertolt Brecht, Ben Johnson and Frederico Garcia Lorca.

Blau left after two years, but Irving stayed for six more seasons, presenting Lee J. Cobb in King Lear, Jessica Tandy and Al Pacino in Camino Real, and Sam Shepard's Operation Sidewinder among others.

The Beaumont was rented out twice in 1967, first for Peter Ustinov's The Unknown Soldier and His Wife and then for a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. Lincoln Center's "Festival '68" included three plays at the Beaumont performed by Paris's Compagnie de Théatre de la Cité de Villeurbanne. A commercial run of Brian Friel's Lovers followed in the fall of 1968. The musical Man of La Mancha (which debuted in 1965 at the ANTA/Washington Square before moving to Broadway for a six-year run) rented the Beaumont in 1972 for a return engagement after a year's tour of America.

Theatre Information:
150 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023
US

Box Office: Tele-charge: (212) 239-6200
Group Sales: Group Sales: Caryl Goldsmith, 212-889-4300

Public Transportation:
SUBWAY: Take 1,9 to 66th Street and walk South to Lincoln Center and the theatre.

Handicap Access:
ACCESS INTO THEATRE: Theatre is completely wheelchair accessible to the Orchestra level, if you use the entrance at the street level- not the plaza level. ORCHESTRA LOCATION: There are approximately 1 to 2 steps down per row to access all Orchestra seats. Entrance is behind row P. Wheelchair accessible seating is located in the Orchestra only. MEZZANINE LOCATION: Called LOGE at this theater. Located on the Second Level, up 2 flight of stairs, 30 steps. Please Note: On the Loge Level, there are approximately 2 steps down per row. Entrance to the Loge is behind row E. ELEVATORS/ESCALATOR: Available from West 65th street garage. Enter through the glass doors. Please ring bell at elevator identified with the wheelchair symbol. Elevator will leave patron off at rear of orchestra/lobby. Elevator does NOT go to Loge. There is also a wheelchair lift to the box office (up 1 flight of steps) RESTROOM: Wheelchair accessible. Located on Lobby Level.

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