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The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre theater at 220 West 48th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Henry B. Herts and is named for Longacre Square, the former name of Times Square. The Longacre has 1,077 seats across three levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium's interior are New York City designated landmarks.
The ground-floor facade is made of rusticated blocks of terracotta. The theater's main entrance is shielded by a marquee. The upper stories are divided vertically into five bays, which contain niches on either side of three large windows. The auditorium contains ornamental plasterwork, a sloped orchestra level, two balconies, and a coved ceiling. The balcony level contains box seats topped by flat arches, and the proscenium opening is also a flat arch. In addition, the Longacre contains two lounges, and the top story formerly had offices.
Theatrical personality Harry Frazee acquired the site in 1911 and developed the Longacre Theatre to accommodate musicals. The Longacre opened on May 1, 1913, with the play Are You a Crook?, but the theater housed several flops in its early years. Frazee, who co-owned the theater with G. M. Anderson, sold his ownership stake in 1917 to focus on baseball. The Shubert brothers acquired the Longacre in 1924 and operated it for two decades before leasing it as a radio and television studio in 1944. The Shuberts returned the Longacre to legitimate theatrical use in 1953. The theater gained a reputation for hosting few successful productions in the late 20th century and was nearly converted to a court in the early 1990s. The Longacre was renovated in 2008.
Before the Longacre Theatre was developed, the surrounding area generally had a mixture of low-rise residences and industrial buildings. The site of the Longacre Theatre was previously occupied by a row of four residences, each of which was three stories high. At the time of the theater's construction, the site to the east contained a carriage factory, while the Union Methodist Church was across 48th Street.
At ground level along 48th Street, there is a water table made of granite, above which are rusticated blocks of terracotta. The ground level contains five doorways, separated by sign boards. The three center openings are each approached by a single step; each opening contains a metal-and-glass double door topped by a transom. On either side of the central doors is a recessed doorway containing metal double doors. A frieze decorated with foliate moldings, as well as a horizontal band with facets, runs above the first floor. Above all of these openings is a metal marquee. The stage door is to the left of the main entrance doors. According to early photographs, the ground-floor facade was originally composed of colored terracotta tiles, the color of which complemented the upper stories.
The upper stories are divided into five bays, separated by fluted . The lower section of each pilaster contains a floral decoration, an urn, and a niche with a female statue personifying Drama; the statues hold masks and scrolls. The pilasters are topped by Corinthian order-style capitals. The three inner bays (directly above the marquee) contain double-height openings, each with a window and a transom bar that is divided horizontally into three sections. The bottoms of each window contain Window sill with brackets and Reeding panels, while the spaces above contain curved . A triangular sign is placed over the center window. The outermost two bays contain paneling, as well as that support empty niches. Large billboards were originally hung over the outermost bays.
Near the top of each bay, between the pilasters' capitals, is a frieze panel in each bay. Each panel consists of an oval plaque, which is flanked by circular medallions with scallop and mask motifs. Above this, an entablature wraps across the width of the facade; it contains fluted tiles on either side of an inscription with the words "The Longacre Theatre". The entablature is topped by a cornice with and lions' heads. Above the cornice is an attic story with two recessed sash windows in each bay. The interiors of the recessed window openings are decorated with medallions and foliate motifs. The attic story's bays are separated by projecting pilasters with urns and foliate decoration. There is an architrave and a parapet just below the roof.
The original color scheme consisted of hues of Roman gold, with topaz carpets, wisteria seats, and gold draperies. Though the decorative scheme was described in one source as "extremely simple", the decorative motifs that did exist were highly elaborate, and some motifs were repeated multiple times. The auditorium's current color scheme, which consists of gold and green hues, dates to 2008.
The theater's lobby was originally decorated in gray-green colors, with highlights of gold and serpentine marble. The dressing rooms behind the stage are completely insulated from the auditorium by a heavy steel wall. In addition, Frazee's offices were placed above the auditorium. In a 2008 renovation, a basement lounge was excavated, and the attic was turned into an upper lounge with a bar and bathrooms.
Promenades also exist behind both balcony levels. The balcony walls have similar plasterwork paneling and eared doorway frames to the orchestra level. An entablature runs atop the front portion of the second balcony's walls; it wraps above the boxes on both sides of the auditorium, as well as above the proscenium arch. There are light fixtures and air conditioning vents underneath both balcony levels, as well as a technical booth behind the second balcony's rear wall. The balcony fronts were originally decorated with plasterwork Festoon and Fleur-de-lis. The ornamentation on the undersides and front railings of both balconies was removed at some point after the theater's opening, then restored in 2008. The balconies are shallow and placed at a low height, a deliberate design choice that brought these seats closer to the stage.
On either side of the proscenium is one curved box at the first balcony level. The boxes are housed within flat-arched openings. As with the balconies, the boxes' fronts were originally decorated with plasterwork swags and Fleur-de-lis, but the original ornamentation on the boxes' undersides and front railings was removed after the theater's opening. The boxes' ornamentation was also restored in 2008. Above each box is an entablature with foliate motifs and a cornice with dentils. An Adam style band surrounds each box's arch. In addition, there is an oval medallion depicting a helmet and shield, which interrupts the Adam-style band.
The ceiling is slightly Coved ceiling at its edges, though the rest of the ceiling is flat. A coved, molded band separates the ceiling into front and rear sections. A wide panel containing cartouches, foliate decoration, and latticework is placed at the front of the ceiling. Two chandeliers hang from either side of this panel. The rear section of the ceiling is semicircular and is surrounded by a band with foliate decorations.
The Longacre opened on May 1, 1913, with Are You a Crook?, a farce about criminals that closed after 12 performances.; ;
It was one of nine theaters to open in Times Square during the 1912–1913 theatrical season. The musical Adele, which opened in August 1913, was much more successful. The Longacre hosted several Box-office bomb afterward. In April 1914, the theater went into foreclosure to satisfy an outstanding mortgage of $70,000, though the foreclosure proceeding was subsequently withdrawn. The same year, the Longacre hosted the melodrama A Pair of Sixes, which lasted 188 performances,; and the farce Kick In with John Barrymore, which had 207 total performances.
During 1915, the Longacre's productions included Inside the Lines with Lewis Stone,;
A Full House with May Vokes,
and The Great Lover with Leo Ditrichstein.
In April 1916, Frazee and G. M. Anderson bought the Longacre Theatre; previously, they had leased it from Pincus and Goldstone. The Longacre's next hit was Nothing but the Truth, which opened in 1916 and starred William Collier Sr. for 332 performances.
In November 1916, during the run of Nothing but the Truth, Frazee sold his interest in the Longacre to Anderson, L. Lawrence Weber, and F. Ray Comstock. Frazee wished to focus on managing the Boston Red Sox, which he had just acquired. The Longacre then hosted two popular shows in the late 1910s. Guy Bolton, Jerome Kern, and P. G. Wodehouse provided music for the intimate musical Leave It to Jane in 1917, while Bolton and George Middleton collaborated on Adam and Eva in 1919.
The Longacre's offerings in the late 1920s included Jarnegan with Richard and Joan Bennett,; Hawk Island with Clark Gable, and A Primer for Lovers with Alison Skipworth.; In general, the Longacre did not hold any long runs in 1930 or 1931. The shows during this time included The Matriarch in 1930 with Constance Collier and Jessica Tandy, as well as Nikki in 1931 with Fay Wray. The next hit came in 1932, when Blessed Event opened with Roger Pryor.; ; The Longacre then staged Nine Pine Street,; and Wednesday's Child. The Longacre hosted many flops during the Great Depression, sometimes with a several-month gap between productions.; In March 1935, the Group Theatre premiered Clifford Odets's Till the Day I Die and Waiting for Lefty, which starred Odets, Elia Kazan, and Lee J. Cobb for 135 performances. That December, the Group Theatre staged Paradise Lost, another Odets play, at the Longacre.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA)'s Federal Theatre Project had planned to rent the Longacre in 1936, but the WPA rescinded its plan due to protests from stagehand unions. Artef, a Yiddish theatre group, was also negotiating for the Longacre. The Longacre's productions during this time included a Hedda Gabler revival with Alla Nazimova,;
followed by The Lady Has a Heart with Elissa Landi.; The Longacre hosted Paul Osborn's On Borrowed Time in 1938,; ; which ran for 321 performances.
Another Osborn play, Morning's at Seven in 1939, had a 44-performance run at the Longacre (though its 1980 Broadway revival was far more successful). In the early 1940s, the Longacre was generally filled by productions with less than 100 performances. The major exception to this was Three's a Family, which opened in 1943; ; and ran for 497 performances.
Ultimately, the Longacre was used as a radio and television studio for nine and a half years. The Broadway theatre industry had improved by mid-1953, when a shortage of available theaters prompted the Shuberts to return the Longacre to legitimate productions. The first production at the newly reopened Longacre was Dorothy Parker and Arnaud d'Usseau's Ladies of the Corridor, which opened in October 1953. Ladies of the Corridor was not a success,; and neither was Jean Anouilh's Mademoiselle Colombe in 1954.;
More successful was Lillian Hellman's version of Anouilh's The Lark, which opened in 1955 and featured Julie Harris, Boris Karloff, and Christopher Plummer. This was followed in 1957 by Fair Game, which featured Sam Levene and Ellen Burstyn.; Another hit at the Longacre was Samuel Taylor's 1958 comedy The Pleasure of His Company, which featured Cornelia Otis Skinner, Walter Abel, Dolores Hart, George Peppard, Cyril Ritchard, and Charlie Ruggles.
Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros opened at the Longacre in 1961 and featured Zero Mostel. A transfer of Ossie Davis's Purlie Victorious followed at the end of the same year.
The Longacre also hosted Henry Denker's A Case of Libel in 1963, with Sidney Blackmer, Larry Gates, and Van Heflin, followed in 1964 by Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window with Gabriel Dell and Rita Moreno. In 1966, the theater hosted a short run of Tennessee Williams's Slapstick Tragedy; (composed of The Mutilated and The Gnadiges Fraulein),
Hal Holbrook's solo show Mark Twain Tonight!, and a solo appearance by Gilbert Bécaud. Holbrook, Teresa Wright, and Lillian Gish starred in Robert Anderson's play Never Sang for My Father at the Longacre in 1968. The National Theatre of the Deaf also performed at the Longacre for a limited engagement in 1969.
In 1978, the Fats Waller revue Ain't Misbehavin' opened at the Longacre, ultimately seeing 1,604 performances over three theaters.; The Longacre's next hit was Children of a Lesser God with Phyllis Frelich and John Rubinstein, which opened in 1980; ; and had 887 performances. The Longacre often remained dark for several consecutive months during the 1980s, and a 1987 New York Times article reported that the theater had been empty for 201 of the past 208 weeks. Shows during the decade included Passion, Play Memory, Harrigan 'N Hart, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Precious Sons, The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940, Don't Get God Started, and Hizzoner!. A video for the song The Rum Tum Tugger, from the musical Cats, was also shot at the Longacre during one of its dark periods in 1984. During the late 1980s, the Shuberts renovated the Longacre as part of a restoration program for their Broadway theaters.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had started considering protecting the Longacre as a landmark in 1982, with discussions continuing over the next several years. The LPC designated the Longacre's facade and interior as a landmark on December 8, 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 Longacre, 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.
Horton Foote's The Young Man from Atlanta opened at the Longacre in 1997, followed by David Henry Hwang's Golden Child the next year. The Longacre then hosted The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm in April 1999 and John Pielmeier's Voices in the Dark that August. In 2001, the Longacre hosted two brief runs: Judgment at Nuremberg and A Thousand Clowns. The musical One Mo' Time ran for only three weeks in 2002, while Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam opened later that year and ran six months. 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 Longacre. The Longacre then had two major flops: The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (2003), which closed after one performance, and Prymate (2004), which lasted five performances. A revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened in 2005, followed by a transfer of the off-Broadway hit Well in 2006. The Longacre had no productions for about a year until Talk Radio opened in March 2007.
After Talk Radio ended, the Longacre was closed for a $12 million renovation by Kostow Greenwood Architects. The marquee was replaced and the climate control system was refurbished. The interior spaces were extensively rebuilt with new seats and lounges, as well as restored decorations, including an approximation of the original color scheme. Original decorative elements, removed in previous renovations, were restored to the balcony and boxes. The theater reopened in May 2008 with the farce Boeing Boeing, which ran until the following January; Boeing Boeing 279-performance run was the longest of any production at the Longacre in almost three decades. The next hit was Burn the Floor, which opened in August 2009 and ran for five months.
The theater temporarily closed on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened on November 2, 2021, with previews of Diana, which ran seven weeks. A limited revival of the play Macbeth opened in April 2022, followed by the play Leopoldstadt in October 2022. The Broadway transfer of the musical Lempicka, based on the life of Tamara de Lempicka, opened at the theater in April 2024. This was followed in November 2024 by the musical Swept Away,
which ran for a month.
The musical Dead Outlaw opened at the Longacre in April 2025.
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