BELASCO THEATER
Completed 1907
Architect George Keister
Theaters became smaller after the turn of the century; many people who were dependent on less expensive, upper-balcony seats for their weekly entertainment turned to the new, even cheaper, movie houses. Impresarios such as David Belasco saw this as an opportunity to present drama in intimate spaces. The auditorium's drawing-room theme is carried out in a Tiffany-bedecked neo-Georgian style, complemented by 18 Everett Shin murals surmounting the proscenium. Reinforcing the 'at home' style is the domesticity of the colonial revival exterior. In contrast to the apparent intimate simplicity of the theater, Belasco was a 'man of the century,' incorporating a new sophisticated lighting system, an elevator stage and a special effects studio behind the scenes
The theater's premier production as the Stuyvesant, on October 16, 1907, featured William Warfield and Antoinette Perry in A Grand Army Man. Belasco renamed the theater for himself in 1910. Except for a brief span in the early '50s when it was used as a radio studio by NBC, the Belasco has remained a legitimate Broadway house
1908 William J Hurlbut's drama The Fighting Hope stars Blanche Bates
1909 Frances Starr stars in The Easiest Way, by Eugene Walter
1914 Leo Ditrichstein and Laura Hope Crews star in Ferenc Molnar's comedy The Phantom Rival
1915 Arthur Byron and Martha Hedman are on the boards in the smash comedy hit The Boomerang. It runs for 522 performances
1916 Guy Bolton wrote the lyrics to go with George Middleton's music for David Belasco's production of Polly With a Past
1919 People hear a lot more of George Abbott as a director in future years, for now he's on the boards with Jeanne Eagels in John Hubble's comedy Daddies
1920 Who's Frederick Bickel? He makes his debut in the strangely-named drama Deburau. He'll become a star as Fredric March
1921 Kiki, the Belasco-written comedy, stars Lenore Ulric
1922 David Warfield is back at the Belasco in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
1926 Lenore Ulric takes a dramatic turn in Edward Sheldon's and Charles McArthur's Lulu Belle
1927 Hit the Deck! Vincent Youmans wrote the music for this musical. It includes Louise Groody, Charles King and a young Brian Donlevy in the cast
1929 Humphrey Bogart appears with Mildred McCoy and Harlan Briggs in It's a Wise Child, a comedy by Laurence Johnson
1935 Clifford Odet's Awake and Sing features Stella Adler, Morris Carnovsky and John Garfield
1935 All the Dead End Kids are here for Dead End, which includes Sidney Lumet in the cast and features Dan Duryea's Broadway debut
1937 If you're going to make a Broadway debut, you may as well make it with a cast that includes Morris Carnovsky, Frances Farmer, Luther Adler, Lee J Cobb, Howard Da Silva and Phoebe Brand. Karl Malden does just that in Clifford Odet's Golden Boy
1940 John Barrymore has been away from Broadway for awhile, 18 years in fact. He returns to star in the Catherine Tunney-Jerry Horwin comedy My Dear Children
1948 As The Madwoman of Chaillot, Martita Hunt receives a Tony for outstanding performance in a play
1953 The Solid Gold Cadillac is playwright George S Kaufman's last Broadway enterprise
1955 Throw Jayne Mansfield and Tina Louise together with Orson Bean and Walter Matthau and you get George Axelrod's comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
1957 Noel Coward writes. Noel Coward directs. Noel Coward stars in Nude with Violin, along with Morris Carnovsky
1960 Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize winning All the Way Home features Colleen Dewhurst, Arthur Hill and Lillian Gish. Dewhurst receives her first Tony for this performance
1966 Beryl Reid is Tony's best actress for her performance in Frank Marcus' The Killing of Sister George
1975 Folks aren't lining up at midnight to throw toast. They aren't lining up at all to see Tim Curry in 32 performances of The Rocky Horror Show
1995 The play's title is one word: Hamlet. The Tony title is: best performance by a leading actor in a play. It goes to Ralph Fiennes
1997 Anthony Page directs Janet McTeer and Owen Teale in this Tony-winning revival of Ibsen's The Doll House. They all receive Tonys
