Completed 1927

Architect Herbert J Krapp

A musical-comedy house built for producers Alex Aarons and Vinton Freedly, the 'Al' + 'vin' of the theater's original name. Designer Krapp continued his string of Adamesque-inspired theaters. Architecturally undistinguished, the producers aspired the Alvin to be the mecca of high-brow, well-produced musical comedy. Adele Astaire and Fred Astaire performed in the premiere production, Funny Face, on November 22, 1927. The producers lost control of their theater (as had many others) during the depression year of 1932. CBS used the theater as a radio studio throughout the 30s and into the mid-40s, when it was again used for legitimate productions. The Shubert Organization purchased the Alvin in 1975 renamed it in honor of playwright Neil Simon during the highly successful run of his Brighton Beach Memoirs. The theater, designated a New York City landmark in August 1985, is now part of the Nederlander Organization

1930 Ethel Merman sings 'I've Got Rhythm,' Ginger Rogers sings 'Embraceable You.' Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey and Gene Krupa are playing in the orchestra (none of them the conductor). George and Ira Gershwin do the music. Girl Crazy runs for 272 performances.

1933 Helen Hayes appears as Mary of Scotland in Maxwell Anderson's hit costume drama

1934 Guy Bolton, PG Wodehouse, Howard Lindsey, Russel Crouse and Cole Porter collaborate on Anything Goes. Ethel Merman delivers the title song and 'You're the Top'

1935 George and Ira Gershwin are back, represented by their version of Porgy and Bess, starring Todd Duncan, Ann Brown, John Bubble and Warren Coleman

1936 It's a de lovely lineup, with Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope and Vivian Vance appearing in the Howard Lindsey-Russel Crouse-Cole Porter musical Red, Hot and Blue

1940 Ernest Hemingway and Benjamin Glazer authored the drama The Fifth Column. Directed by Lee Strasberg, the show stars Franchot Tone, Lee J Cobb, Lenore Ulric and Katherine Locke. It only lasts for 87 performances

1940 Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne star with Sidney Greenstreet and Montgomery Clift in Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize winning drama There Shall Be No Night

1941 Gertrude Lawrence is The Lady in the Dark, the Moss Hart-Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin musical that also stars MacDonald Carey, Victor Mature and Danny Kaye. Kaye's 'Tschaikowsky Song,' in which he names 50 Russian composers in 43 seconds, steals the show

1943 Something for the Boys it is when Ethel Merman sings 'Hey Good Lookin' in this Cole Porter show

1946 Jose Ferrer's defining role as Cyrano de Bergerac wins an outstanding performance Tony

1946 Same stage, same year, different show. Ingrid Bergman's portrayal of Joan of Lorraine also wins an outstanding performance Tony

1948 The movie version has delighted generations; the stage version of Mr. Roberts delights 1,157 audiences and also stars Henry Fonda in the title role

1951 Dorothy Fields and Arthur Schwartz collaborated on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Shirley Booth stars

1954 Diahann Carroll makes her Broadway debut in the Truman Capote-Harold Arlen musical House of Flowers. The show stars Pearl Bailey and Juanita Hall, along with Ray Walston, Geoffrey Holder and Alvin Ailey

1955 Ira Levin's No Time for Sergeants stars that personable hillbilly Andy Griffith

1956 Frank Loesser sits in a bar and gets drunk when his musical Greenwillow opens next door. He konws the score; after 95 performances its lights out

1962 Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart, Stephen Sondheim, George Abbott and Jerome Robbins collaborated on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, Raymond Walburn and David Burns star. On the way home Shevelove, Gelbart, Abbott, Mostel, Burns and the show pick up Tonys

1964 Beatrice Lillie appears in her last Broadway show, the Hugh Martin-Timothy Gray musical High Spirits

1967 Tom Stoppard does a twist on Shakespeare in his Tony-award winning drama Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead

1968 Howard Sackler wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Great White Hope. The show starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, earns a Tony, as do Jones and Alexander

1970 Company is not very well received but survives for 706 performances. Along the way it garners a Tony as best musical and individual Tonys for Harold Prince's direction, George Furth's book and Stephen Sondheim's score. The show stars Dean Jones, Elaine Stritch, Barbara Barrie and Donna McKechnie

1975 John Collum stars in Shenandoah and wins a Tony for his performance, as does James Lee Barett, Peter Udell and Phillip Rose for the musical's book

1977 The sun will come out every time Andrea McArdle is on stage in the title role of Annie. Dorothy Loudon stars and receives a Tony, as does Peter Gennaro for his choreography, Thomas Meehan for the show's book and Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin for the score. Oh, and the show wins for best musical

1981 Jason Alexander, who goes on to TV stardom in the sitcom Seinfeld, makes his Broadway debut alongside Liz Callaway in a revival of Kaufman and Hart's Merrily We Roll Along

1983 Neil Simon's first installment of his coming of age trilogy, Brighton Beach Memoirs, makes a star of and earns a Tony for Matthew Broderick. The show also stars Joyce Van Patten and Elizabeth Franz and earns a Tony for director Gene Saks

1985 Back-to-back Neil Simon, this time with Matthew Broderick as Eugene (or is it Neil Simon as Eugene, or Broderick as Simon?), in the Army. Director Gene Saks takes home another Tony, as does Biloxi Blues itself and featured actor Barry Miller

1988 Magical moments abound during the 3 week limited engagement of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night mounted by director Jose Quintero. Together with Quintero, stars Jason Robards Jr and Colleen Dewhurst are the playwrights foremost interpreters

1992 Neil Simon again, this time with Alan Alda and Brenda Vaccaro in Jake's Women

1996 The revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's The King and I earns a Tony for best revival and one for Donna Murphy's perfrmance. The show runs through 1999

1999 A return engagement of The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Ron Bohmer, Carolee Carmello and Marc Kudisch opened at the Neil Simon Sep 10th