sign in sign up
<<
Home , Alice Ghostley, Barbara Bel Geddes, Brock Pemberton, Eva Marie Saint, Gilbert Miller, Hatcher Hughes

ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:13 PM Page 356

STEPHEN SONDHEIM NEWLY RENAMED THE Theatre in summer 2010, the old THEATRE ’s Theatre is the first and so far only playhouse designed and built in the twenty-first century. It boasts of being Broadway’s first thoroughly “green” theatre, designed to minimize its energy use and contri- bution to environmental pollution. But it stands on the site and incorporates elements of a far older theatre (which also bore the name Henry Miller’s) with a rich history that leaves it with one foot in the past and one in the future. The distinctive possessive in the “Henry Miller’s” name reflects the philosophy of its namesake. The -born Miller, who had originated the lead role of John Worthing in the 1895 U.S. premiere of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, was not just an ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:13 PM Page 357 ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:13 PM Page 358

358 AT T HIS T HEATRE

actor and producer of the old school. He was a vive the Depression, wars, numerous recessions, Left to right: Builder of philosopher of theatre design. He believed the and even a long stint as a discotheque. the theatre that bore ideal theatre was not too large or too small, that In fact, Henry Miller’s theatre survived more his name for more than ninety years, producer its stage would be just wide enough to encom- or less intact until 2006, when everything but its and actor Henry Miller. pass the action while occupying a wide range of landmarked facade was demolished, right down (Photo courtesy Cook + the viewers’ field of vision, so they could all the (and into) the schist that underlies Fox). better immerse themselves in the illusion being much of the island. But owing to a remarkable presented on the stage. On the other hand, effort by owners the Durst family (notably the A 1920s era cover for shows at while second balconies were beginning to go developer’s granddaughter, theatre lover Anita Henry Miller’s Theatre. out of fashion, Miller opted to include one. Durst), a brand-new, state-of-the-art, 1,055-seat He was part of the generation of “personal- theatre rose on the same site behind the original The landmarked façade ity” managers like David Belasco, Martin facade, incorporating many of Henry Miller’s of the theatre during its Beck, George Howells Broadhurst, John Cort, original theories and—significantly, in an age of original incarnation, and Winthrop Ames, who built theatres, named corporate branding of theatres—restoring Henry circa 1929. (Photo cour- tesy Cook + Fox) them after themselves, and programmed them Miller’s name (at least for a few months). like a later generation would do with their per- Miller played The Fountain of Youth for thir- sonal websites. Miller’s vision was bankrolled ty-two performances, then appeared in the fifty- by philanthropist Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, three-performance revival of the 1897 John who owned the land on which the theatre was Drew vehicle A Marriage of Convenience, which built. Miller worked in partnership with the opened on May 1, 1918. In the years to come, the producing team of Klaw and Erlanger. theatre hosted many dramas and comedies but Architects Allen, Ingalls, and Hoffman incor- only rarely a musical. Miller produced and/or porated Miller’s theories in the 950-seat gem of a starred in many of the early productions and playhouse, which rose at 125 West Forty-third hired his favorites, like Lillian Kemble-Cooper, Street, half a block east of . It who appeared in The Fountain of Youth and then opened on April Fool’s Day 1918, just as Germany again in Douglas Murray’s flop Perkins (October was preparing to assault the allies at Ypres, 22, 1918), and Ames, who also Belgium, in one of its final offensives of World appeared in Perkins and then returned less than War I, and the day Britain merged her various air- a month later in Jean Webster’s Daddy Long borne fighting forces into the Royal Air Force. Legs, also with Miller (and also a failure, at fif- Henry Miller inaugurated his namesake teen performances). playhouse with Louis Evan Shipman’s romantic Miller seemed to be searching for the kind of comedy The Fountain of Youth, starring none audience-pleasing melodrama that had been his other than himself. Wartime audiences were not bread and butter before World War I, but also try- impressed with the play, but the playhouse itself ing to provide a showcase for writers who might was another matter. In the coming decades many earn the respect of a new generation, like Eugene distinguished American dramas and comedies O’Neill. Thus, in the early 1920s, Miller was both would debut here, along with a bumper crop of slightly behind and ahead of the times and suf- flops, and many great careers would get their fered a series of short runs like Back to Earth starts here. In all, more than 150 shows would (1918, sixteen performances) and Tillie (1919, open at Henry Miller’s, which managed to sur- thirty-two performances) as a result. ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:13 PM Page 359

S TEPHEN S ONDHEIM T HEATRE 359

Miller turned over producing responsibilities Times as a “fair to middling whimsy” about a to the team of George M. Cohan and in woman trying to choose between a business- February 1919 with Laurence Eyre’s “comedy of man and a poet. It opened January 7, 1921, and moonshine, madness and make-believe,” Mis’ ran for 105 performances. Nelly of N’Orleans, which was performed by The Irish Players from the Abbey Theatre name star Mrs. Fiske (aka Minnie Maddern Fiske) in Dublin brought over Lennox Robinson’s hit in a thick Creole accent for 127 performances. London play The White-Headed Boy, on One of Broadway’s all-time greatest tal- September 15, 1921. It was the story of a spoiled ents marked a milestone at Henry Miller’s young man who blarneys his whole town into Theatre: composer wrote his believing he’s headed for an adventure in first complete score to a musical, La, La, Canada, when actually he’s just flunked out of Lucille, which bowed here May 26, 1919, with college. The show did not repeat its London suc- lyrics by B. G. “Buddy” DeSylva. It ran 104 cess, and by November 7, 1921, Henry Miller’s performances, interrupted by the late-summer Theatre was ready for its fifth show in less than actors’ strike that helped establish the power a year: The Intimate Stranger. and of Actors’ Equity Association, the actors’ Billie Burke starred in Booth Tarkington’s com- union. After the strike, the show tried to come edy about a woman who tests her suitor by pre- back at the but managed tending to be much older than she is. This was only a few extra performances, leaving behind Tarkington’s first return to Broadway after his the Gershwin rag “Tee Oodle Um Bum Bo.” success with Clarence, and the new play suf- starred in Grace Heyer fered by comparison. and Rita Olcott’s Lusmore (September 9, 1919, Three plays had short runs in 1922 before the twenty-three performances), an Irish fancy Selwyn brothers brought in a hit revival of Romeo about a poet hunchback who is suspected of and Juliet on January 24, 1923, starring Jane Cowl having a supernatural birth. and Rollo Peters as the star-crossed lovers. The With the women’s suffrage movement gain- lovers were united in death 157 times. ing steam before women were granted the right The state of modern marriage was explored to vote in 1920, James Forbes brought in The Changelings by two mismatched couples to Henry Miller’s Theatre a reactionary woman’s- and a daughter who elopes with an unsuitable place-is-in-the-home drama, The Famous Mrs. husband. Lee Wilson Dodd’s comedy opened Fair, which gave the theatre its longest run so far, September 17, 1923, with Blanche Bates, Ruth 183 performances, beginning December 1919. Chatterton, and Henry Miller, and it marched Blanche Bates starred as Nancy Fair, a female down the aisle 128 times. It was chosen by Burns war hero who returns home with a feminist agen- Mantle as one of the ten best plays of the season. da but decides to set it aside it when she realizes Six undistinguished plays flitted across her husband (Henry Miller) and daughter Henry Miller’s boards in 1924, leaving barely a (Margalo Gillmore) are drifting away. memory. But April 1925 brought an influential (if A. E. Thomas welcomed the 1920s with a fan- short-lived) comedy, The Poor Nut, by the tasy called Just Suppose, about a European royal father—son writing team of Elliott Nugent and J. much like the Prince of Wales coming to the C. Nugent. It told the story of a nerdy college stu- United States and falling in love with an dent who writes love letters to a beauty contest American girl. Fred Kerr, Patricia Collinge, and winner, proclaiming his love and bragging about starred in the play. The royal lead his looks and sports prowess. But when she was changed to the “Prince of Koronia” for the shows up on campus to claim her , he subsequent film version after Brits objected to has to find a way to live up to his self-created the very notion that their sovereign might con- image. The play ran only thirty-two performanc- sider anything so vulgar. (Ironically, the then- es on Broadway but found greater success in sev- current Prince of Wales, the future King Edward eral film versions, including one with Joe E. VIII, would indeed fall for an American and Brown. The plot device was recycled by plays, renounce his throne to be with her.) movies, and TV sitcoms for generations. Long before , Mrs. Fiske got Noël Coward chose Henry Miller’s Theatre advice from puppets in Wake Up, Jonathan!, an for the September 16, 1925, U.S. premiere of early play (co-written with his London hit The Vortex, which painted a por- Hatcher Hughes) described by the trait of the British upper class occupied with ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:14 PM Page 360

360 AT T HIS T HEATRE

drugs, nymphomania, and a hint of homosexu- are preparing for a major offensive against the ality. The play had created a scandal, so natu- Germans. The play introduced each man as an rally proved to be popular everywhere. individual, full of hopes and fears and plans for Coward starred in his own play with Lillian what he might do after the war. The play let the Braithewaite and Leo G. Carroll and earned his audience understand that their unit was to be sac- first success in New York, as well. rificed as a diversionary action in the coming bat- Henry Miller’s theatre was hung with black tle, and that all were doomed. Many in the audi- April 9, 1926, to mark the passing of its owner ence were World War veterans themselves, and and namesake. Miller’s son Gilbert took over the grown men were seen to weep during perform- management of the playhouse, and it remained in ances. The production opened March 22, 1929, the family until 1968. had an and had a healthy run of 485 performances emphatic production philosophy of his own, and despite the fall 1929 stock market crash. under his guidance his father’s theatre reached Molnár returned to Henry Miller’s Theatre even greater heights, hosting New York pre- September 29, 1930, with a pair of one-act plays, mieres of works by Eugene O’Neill, George The Violet and One, Two, Three, but they did not Bernard Shaw, , T. S. Eliot, W. repeat the success of The Play’s the Thing. The Somerset Maugham, Terence Rattigan, S. N. dark curtain of Depression was closing around Behrman, , and many other of , eventually leading to the shuttering leading lights of the eras through which it passed. and demolition of nearly half of Broadway’s the- Gilbert Miller found his first hit in atres. Henry Miller’s Theatre, however, had the November 1926 with Hungarian author Ferenc good fortune to stay steadily booked throughout Molnár’s sophisticated backstage farce The the Depression, World War II, and the postwar Play’s the Thing, in a translation by P. G. boom with numerous short and medium runs, and Wodehouse. Holbrook Blynn was featured in the it even enjoyed the occasional long-running hit. story of a young playwright who is in love with an In Tomorrow and Tomorrow (January 13, older actress but unable to write a word after he 1931), playwright Philip Barry presented the overhears her being wooed by another man. His predicament of a man who raises a child he thinks desperate producer concocts an elaborate ruse to is his own but who was really fathered by his convince the author that all he heard was the wife’s lover. It stayed for six months. Helen actress rehearsing another play, one much inferi- Hayes starred in Molnár’s November 1931 come- or to his own. At 326 performances, The Play’s dy The Good Fairy, about an innocent movie ush- the Thing was the theatre’s greatest success so erette who embarks on a campaign of doing good far. Even greater things were to come. deeds for strangers—but winds up creating a Pre-Hollywood Spencer Tracy was show- chaos of lust and greed for all concerned. After a cased by his mentor, George M. Cohan, in the run of 151 performances it was adapted for film 1927 farce The Baby Cyclone, about two women by , and it later returned to the battling over the title character, a pet Pekinese. It stage as a Broadway musical called Make a Wish. ran five months. W. Somerset Maugham exposed Eugene O’Neill presented one of his lesser the immorality of the British upper classes in the works, Days without End, on January 8, 1924. In sarcastically titled Our Betters, which starred this experimental Jekyll-and-Hyde-like story, Ina Claire and Constance Collier, for 128 per- Earle Larimore and Stanley Ridges played the formances starting February 20, 1928. good and bad sides, respectively, of a single char- Set in the city room of a big-city daily acter named John Loving. It lasted fifty-seven newspaper, Gentlemen of the Press (August 27, performances. October 1934 brought Lawrence 1928) was notable for having been written by a Riley’s hit comedy Personal Appearance, star- real-life press gentleman, theatrical columnist ring Gladys George as a Hollywood glamour girl Ward Morehouse, whose son, Ward Morehouse who finds herself smitten with a hunky salt-of- III, later served as theatrical columnist of the the-earth mechanic while on a PR tour for her New York Post. new movie. The Broadway version ran 501 per- This theatre’s next hit was one of the most formances and was snatched up by real-life heartbreaking plays of the 1920s, R. C. Sherriff’s movie star Mae West, who adapted it as her clas- wartime drama Journey’s End. Set in a trench on sic Go West, Young Man. the front lines of World War I, the play painted a A reputed war hero is denounced as a fake lifelike portrait of a group of British soldiers who and a murderer in Edward Wooll’s drama Libel, ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 361

S TEPHEN S ONDHEIM T HEATRE 361

Top: The original lobby (looking toward the 43rd Street doors) dur- ing renovation. (Photo courtesy the Museum of the City of New York)

Bottom: Exterior of the theatre during its long decline. (Photo cour- tesy Cook + Fox)

which opened in December 1935 and played 159 performances. Playwright Terence Rattigan made his Broadway debut September 28, 1937, with the lighter-than-air London comedy French without Tears, about romantic high jinks among English students taking a crash course in French. The production lasted 111 performanc- es and opened the door to Rattigan’s successful career on Broadway. On February 4, 1938, Henry Miller’s Theatre hosted the most distinguished play in its long his- tory, and one of the greatest of all American their hands with and had already plays: Our Town. Thornton Wilder’s deceptively rebooked the house by the time it opened. As a simple drama about a few days in the ordinary result, Wilder’s classic stayed just a few days at lives of two neighboring families in Grover’s this theatre before transferring to the Morosco Corners, New Hampshire, somehow managed to and completing a run of 336 performances. capture the profoundest joy and sorrow of human The show for which Our Town was evicted, life in its masterfully chosen tiny details. The Frederick Lonsdale’s old-fashioned comedy drama was notable at the time for being per- Is Enough, opened February 15, 1938, and formed on a virtually empty stage, narrated by an struggled through three months of performanc- omniscient Stage Manager who could start and es. Time magazine said the play “seemed even stop the action and cause the story to jump in more dated than deft [and] appeared at times to time. Our Town earned the for be celebrating the love life of ice cubes.” Drama, and while its reputation has waxed and The theatre had better luck with Kiss the waned over the years, its fascination has lasted Boys Good-bye (September 28, 1938), Clare and it continues to be produced around the world. Boothe Luce’s scalding sendup of the much-publi- Frank Craven originated the role of the Stage cized search for an actress to play Scarlett Manager, with Martha Scott as Emily. O’Hara in the film Gone with the Wind. Helen Ironically, owing to doleful reports from the Claire played the southern belle determined to play’s out-of-town tryout, the Henry Miller’s land the role of Violet O’Toole. ’s management assumed that they had a flop on production ran 286 performances and was made ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 362

362 AT T HIS T HEATRE

into a film with in the central role. The got off to a rocky start with nine failures in a row, including ’s Geneva (January 1940), Molnár’s Delicate Story (December 1940), and S. N. Behrman’s The Talley Method (February 1941). The popular wartime comedy Janie opened a 642-performance run here on September 10, 1942. Gwen Anderson played the seventeen- year-old Janie Coburn, who invites a handsome serviceman and his friends to use her parents’ house for a party, only to have things get out of control. directed the script by Herschel Williams and Josephine Bentham. Flare Path, the U.S. premiere of Terence Rattigan’s play about RAF pilots and the sweethearts who waited for them, flew only fourteen times but was made into a popular film. returned to Henry Miller’s Theatre in March 1943 for Colin Clements’s and Florence Ryerson’s Harriet and stayed for The musical 377 performances. (2001) gave Henry Twin-brother Julius J. Epstein Miller’s Theatre a late- and Philip Epstein, best known as Oscar-win- life hit. ning scriptwriters for the film classic Casablanca, debuted their play Chicken Every Top: Jeff McCarthy and Sunday here on April 5, 1944. It told the enter- the cast sing the title number. taining story of a long-suffering woman who runs a boardinghouse while her husband pur- Bottom: John Cullum sues a series of wacky get-rich-quick schemes. as the wealthy Caldwell The show moved to the Plymouth Theatre, B. Cladwell warns, where it completed a nine-month run. “Don’t Be the Bunny.” (Photos by Joan After several more brief tenancies, Henry Marcus) Miller’s Theatre hosted Norma Krasna’s hit com- Next up, on January 21, 1950, was T. S. Eliot’s edy Dear Ruth, whose plot was not all that differ- London drama , about a couple ent from 1925’s The Poor Nut, but with the gen- who separate just before they plan to host the ders reversed. Trying to impress her soldier party of the title. But a mysterious Uninvited pen-pal, a teenage girl (Virginia Gilmore) sends Guest (who may be an angel) winds up convincing a photo of her prettier older sister. When the sol- them that they would be better off staying togeth- dier shows up on leave, a comedy of mistaken er. Alec Guinness and Cathleen Nesbitt costarred identities ensues. directed the play, in the production, which ran 409 performances which ran 680 performances. The next produc- and won the 1950 Tony Award as Best Play. tion of note was F. Hugh Herbert’s For Love or Another European import, The Moon Is Blue, was Money, a May—September romance between a the story of two men who try, over the course of a naive young woman () and an dinner party, to seduce a young actress but wind older man. The November 1947 production up earning some valuable wisdom instead. F. stayed for 263 performances. Hugh Herbert’s comedy opened May 8, 1951, and On November 9, 1948, Henry Miller’s Theatre ran an enviable 924 performances. Future film welcomed a transfer of ’s hit come- director staged the production, dy , which moved here from the which featured Barbara Bel Geddes, Donald Lyceum and played out its 1,642-peformance run, Cook, and . with its star-making lead performance by Judy Future Pulitzer Prize winner Horton Foote Holliday. Born Yesterday was the first of three wrote the next production, The Trip to Bountiful, satisfying hits in a row at this theatre. the story of an elderly woman who travels back ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 363

S TEPHEN S ONDHEIM T HEATRE 363

to her girlhood home. Audiences had only thirty- play, but the October 15, 1957, Broadway adapta- nine chances to see , tion lasted only thirty-nine performances. (Tony Award), and Eva Marie Saint in this touch- The Playwright’s brought in a ing November 1953 play. But won January 1958 production of The Rope Dancers an Oscar as Best Actress when she played the that lasted nearly six months with a cast that leading role in the 1985 film version. included Art Carney, Siobhán McKenna, Joan Things got personal for a psychiatrist when Blondell, and . But the theatre he discovered that one of his patients is the ex- suffered five quick folds in 1959 alone. The boyfriend of his fiancée in Edward Chodorov’s wreckage included Noël Coward’s ill-advised December 1953 comedy Oh, Men! Oh, Women!, March 1959 adaptation of Georges Feydeu’s com- which starred Gig Young, Franchot Tone, Betsy edy Look After Lulu!, starring Tammy Grimes as Von Furstenberg, and Larry Blyden. It lasted 382 a prostitute. She hung out her red light just thir- performances. Another psychiatrist contended ty-nine times. May of that year saw the with a disabled priest for the soul of a young Broadway transfer of The Nervous Set, a musical woman (Barbara Bel Geddes) in a relationship about life among Greenwich Village beatniks. with an older man in The Living Room The show had proved a sensation in St. Louis, (November 17, 1954). Novelist Graham Greene’s where it was written, but it flopped after just first play had proved a sensation in London but twenty-three performances on Broadway. The seemed more like a sermon in New York and sur- cast album, which became a cult favorite, cap- vived only 22 performances. tured the score by Tommy Wolf and Fran With her thriller The Mousetrap having set- Landesman, and performances by Larry tled into its world-record run in London, Agatha Hagman, Gerald Hiken, and Tom Aldredge. Christie sent another of her hit murder mysteries The sixth show of 1959 proved to be the to Broadway on December 16, 1954. Based on one charm, however. George C. Scott earned a Tony of her own short stories, Witness for the nomination as Best Actor in a Play for his per- Prosecution was the story of a dying attorney who formance in the Civil War atrocity drama The believes in his client’s innocence even when the Andersonville Trial, by Saul Levitt. It opened client’s own wife agrees to testify against him. December 29, 1959, and ran 173 performances went to actors Francis L. Sullivan through June 1960. and , and the play kept Henry The November 1960 attraction Under the Miller’s audiences at the edge of their seats for Yum-Yum Tree was presented as a swinging 645 performances. It was later filmed and won sex comedy about a playboy landlord who rents numerous Oscars, including Best Picture. apartments to attractive young women he An English society girl scandalizes her intends to seduce. Lawrence Roman’s play ran upper-crusty parents when she falls in love with a respectable 173 performances. a common musician in William Douglas Home’s (Tony Award as Best Featured October 1956 play The Reluctant Debutante, Actor in a Play), Vivian Blaine, and Sylvia which starred Adrianne Allen, Wilfred Hyde Sidney starred in Enter Laughing, Joseph White, and Brenda Forbes. Master clown Bert Stein’s comedy about a stagestruck young man Lahr returned to Broadway April 11, 1957, in trying to break into the smallest of small-time Georges Feydeau’s bedroom farce Hotel theatre. Based on the semi-autobiographical Paradiso, which set some sort of Broadway novel by , the play bowed March 13, record for slamming doors. The superb support- 1963, and ran 419 performances. ing cast included , , After the triumph of Lorraine Hansberry’s A and Sondra Lee, but the production titillated for Raisin in the Sun at another theatre, fans eagerly only 108 performances. awaited the “young, gifted and black” author’s After a decade-long golden age full of hits, next play, despite its unpromising title, The Sign things began to thin out for Henry Miller’s in Sidney Brustein’s Window. It turned out to be Theatre in the late . Still gamely pro- the story of a progressive Greenwich Village grammed by the aging Gilbert Miller, the theatre neighborhood that must face up to the fact that rarely had trouble finding plays to book—but the reformist candidate for public office isn’t as actual hits came more and more seldom. Dylan honest as he seemed to be. Starring Gabriel Dell, Thomas’s elegiac portrait of Welsh village life, , and , the production Under Milk Wood, had been a success as a radio opened October 15, 1964 at the , ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 364

364 AT T HIS T HEATRE

Left to right: Roundabout Theatre Company’s Executive Director Julia Levy, Artistic Director Todd Haimes,and Managing Director Harold Wolpert moved to the Henry Miller’s on December 29, cut a ribbon July 28, 1964, and closed on January 10, 1965, after ninety- 2009 to officially nine performances. Sadly it was the final reopen Henry Miller’s Broadway production for the talented young play- Theatre following a wright. She died of cancer at age thirty-four on Connection) made an inauspicious Broadway ground-up rebuilding. (Photo by Aubrey January 12, 1965, two days after the show closed. debut September 24, 1968, with the pro—Fidel Reuben). Three more flops came and went in five Castro drama The Cuban Thing, which pro- performances or fewer that year. But on voked a near-riot on Forty-third Street as oppo- A period photo of the December 22, 1965, the theatre recaptured nents of the communist dictator tried to storm theatre’s original interi- something of its glory days with a transfer of the theatre and disrupt the show. New York or in 1929. (Photo cour- tesy Cook + Fox). the hit , Frank D. Post critic Richard Watts Jr. wrote the next day, Gilroy’s portrait of a dysfunctional family, “Perhaps as a salute to Fidel, the play seems as A detail saved in the which had won both the Tony Award as Best long as one of his speeches.” Despite a cast that 2008-09 renovation Play and the . It included Rip Torn, Jane White, and , and highlighted in the stayed at Henry Miller’s Theatre for a year. there was no second performance. rebuilt theatre. (Photo As Gilbert Miller passed his eightieth birth- Future multiple-Tony-winning playwright courtesy Cook + Fox) day in 1965, his family tried to help him keep the and librettist Terrence McNally made only his theatre going but found it increasingly difficult third Broadway appearance beginning to find quality material. Nine more shows fol- November 28, 1968, with Noon, one of three lowed in quick succession in the mid-, some one-acts on a triple bill called Morning, Noon by distinguished writers, including Jerome and Night. The other two plays were written by Chodorov’s 3 Bags Full (March 1966), Maria rising Off-Broadway stars Israel Horovitz and Irene Fornes’s The Office (April 1966), Aleksei Leonard Melfi, who made their Broadway Arbuzov’s The Promise (November 1967), debuts with this production. Lawrence Holofcener’s Before You Go (January On February 27, 1969, the theatre made one 1968) with , and the Theatre of last stab at legitimacy with Julius J. Epstein’s Genoa’s staging of Goldoni’s The Venetian Twins But, Seriously . . . , which featured Tom Poston, (May 1968). But none found an audience. Dick Van Patten, and a young Richard Dreyfuss, In 1968, tired of struggling to book the the- but it lasted only four performances. atre in a Times Square that was sliding steadily The Nederlanders then sold the theatre to downhill, the Miller family sold the playhouse developer Seymour Durst, who had a long-range to a rising theatrical family, the Nederlanders. plan to buy up all the properties on the block Henry Miller’s Theatre survived as a legitimate bounded by Forty-second Street, Seventh Avenue, house under Nederlander ownership for less Forty-third Street, and Avenue of the Americas. than a year. During that time it had some his- Durst wanted to build office towers on the site. As toric firsts, though they didn’t seem so at the it turned out, it took more than three decades time. Off-Broadway favorite Jack Gelber (The before the last holdout succumbed to Durst’s ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 365

S TEPHEN S ONDHEIM T HEATRE 365

The theatre’s interior as it looked just before reopening in 2009. (Photo courtesy Cook + Fox)

offers. Durst didn’t live to see his plans realized; origins. And the building did revert to a kind of his theatre and his master plan were inherited by legitimacy for a single performance on May 2, his son Douglas on Seymour’s death in 1995. 1983, when the managers experimented with a In the meantime, there was the question of variation on dinner theatre that might have been what to do with Henry Miller’s Theatre. The called “ theatre.” They presented a produc- house left live theatre behind in 1970, the year of tion of Terrence McNally’s farce The Ritz, which Gilbert Miller’s death, and began to screen fea- is set in a gay bathhouse and includes a wild ture films as the Park-Miller Theatre. But even floor show. Ticket holders were allowed to stay that level of respectability did not last long. This after the performance and dance the night away. was the period when the drug and pornography The experiment was not judged a success. industries began to battle live theatre for the soul Xenon went back to an all-music-and-dancing of Times Square. In 1972, one of the bleakest policy and stuck with it into the 1990s. years for the neighborhood, this theatre was The rebirth of Henry Miller’s Theatre as a leased to the Avon chain of triple-X cinemas, and Broadway house was set in motion in 1993 in under the name Avon-at-the-Hudson it hosted London at the Theatre, which hardcore for the next five years. hosted ’s unusual revival of the 1966 Then redemption appeared from an unex- Kander and Ebb musical . Codirected by pected direction. The success of the dis- Mendes and Rob Marshall and choreographed by cotheque in the old Gallo Theatre on Fifty-fourth Marshall, it was set in a sleazy Berlin in Street encouraged the Henry Miller’s next trans- the early 1930s twilight of the Weimar Republic. formation. In 1978 the seats were removed from To recreate that atmosphere in London, Mendes the orchestra section to make room for a dance staged an “environmental” production that spilled floor, and the building was converted into a disco, across the footlights to give the audience the sen- christened Xenon. Operated by impresario Matt sation not only that they were watching a show Johnson, Xenon quickly rose into the second tier about a Berlin cabaret, but that they could imag- of New York for the next two decades, long ine themselves actually in such a place. past the end of the actual disco era. Rights to recreate the show in New York Even as the name on the marquee changed, were awarded to Roundabout Theatre Company, the theatre’s original appellation, “Henry an institutional theatre that had begun perform- Miller’s Theatre,” remained etched into the top ing in an Off-Broadway space below a supermar- of the landmark-protected facade and was visi- ket in 1965 and had grown into progressively bet- ble from the street throughout this period, as if ter spaces downtown, then moved to Broadway in to say that it never really forgot its legitimate 1991, under the direction of Todd Haimes, with its ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 366

366 AT T HIS T HEATRE

headquarters in the center of Times Square at the which Cabaret transferred in November 1998. Criterion Center (now the site of a Toys “R”Us The status of the Kit Kat Klub as a Broadway store). In granting permission to stage the show in theatre was in limbo for a time. New York in spring 1998, Mendes required that Cabaret was considered a Broadway produc- Roundabout also recreate the seedy environment. tion for the Tony Awards, but the next planned The sleekly corporate environs of the Criterion production in was to have been Rollin’ Center didn’t fit the bill. But Haimes and Mendes on the T.O.B.A., a tribute to the all-black touring found the right spot just two blocks south and circuit in the 1920s South. However, when the around the corner. Tony committee announced somewhat arbitrarily By 1998, Henry Miller’s Theatre looked just that the space would be considered an Off- as decadent as anyone could wish. You still for that production, its planned entered through the neo-Georgian brick facade, March 1999 transfer from the Forty-Seventh but inside, the once-beautiful oval foyer had been Street Theatre went on the rocks. nearly filled with a makeshift plywood box After a legal wrangle with promoter Matt office. After you entered, you made a sharp left Johnson, Durst took back control of the eighty- over cracked black and white tiles around the one-year-old playhouse and restored its designa- box office, then a right to enter the rundown per- tion as Henry Miller’s Theatre. Anita Durst, forming space. Circular club tables were arrayed landlord Douglas Durst’s theatre-loving daugh- around the empty orchestra floor, which was pit- ter, hosted The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, ted where seat bolts had been shorn off or ripped based on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s play and out. Threadbare leopard-print carpet on the film about a lesbian couple in the world of high stairs took you to the balcony. fashion. The production starred And it was left just that way for the opening Wisocky as Petra and Durst as Marlene. It and run of Cabaret. “Henry Miller’s Theatre” opened November 30, 2000, and ran seventy-nine seemed too top-hat a name for such a dive, so, performances. Anita Durst, an avant-garde the- just in time for the start of previews, the build- atre artist behind the floating Chashama Theatre ing was rechristened the Kit Kat Klub, after the (it pops up here and there around Times Square fictional cabaret where Cabaret takes place. in vacant storefronts), would prove instrumental Mendes even tried to do away with the tradition in the playhouse’s future. of handing out as patrons entered. He Henry Miller’s Theatre returned to the felt it was yet another reminder to audiences Broadway fold September 20, 2001, with the that they were indeed on Broadway and not in opening of an unusual new musical comedy, Berlin. In the end a compromise was reached Urinetown, which had music by Mark Hollmann, and the PLAYBILL was distributed at the end. book by and lyrics by both. The Broadway production of this revival Originally developed at the New York Music was codirected by Mendes and Rob Marshall Theatre Festival, Urinetown was not intended and choreographed by Marhall. It starred for Broadway. Alternately bleak and funny, the Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles and Alan show was set in a dystopic future when water is Cumming, leering and flaunting rouged nip- so scarce that private toilets are outlawed and ples at the audience, as the creepy Emcee. people must pay to relieve themselves. Written Both actors won Tony Awards for their per- in the style of the 1920s German political musi- formances, as did Ron Rifkin as Herr Schultz. cals like Happy End and Ben Brantley of wrote, by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, Urinetown is “the production pushes hard to remind us that the the story of a group who rise up against the cap- decadence of Weimar Berlin was far from divine. italist head of the local water monopoly (the This Cabaret is seedier, raunchier and more sin- “Urine Good Company”), only to find that things ister than either the original groundbreaking are not as rosy afterward as they expected. With Broadway version, directed by , or Hunter Foster as Bobby Strong, John Cullum as the 1970 movie by Bob Fosse.” Caldwell B. Cladwell, Jeff McCarthy as Officer The revival proved to be a bonanza for Lockstock, and Spencer Kayden as the grimly Roundabout, eventually running 2,377 perform- adorable Little Sally, the show, whose previews ances, more than double the 1,165-performances had been delayed by the September 11 terrorist of the original production. However, most of attacks, captured the blackly comic spirit of the those performances were given at Studio 54, to moment and ran 965 performances. ATT.SectI.7a.qxd 6/30/10 7:15 PM Page 367

S TEPHEN S ONDHEIM T HEATRE 367

The final performance on the well-trod Forty-third streets, providing outdoor seating, a Henry Miller’s stage came on January 18, 2004, stagelike raised wooden platform, and access to after which the building was demolished, with the Henry Miller’s stage door, which is dominat- only its landmark brick facade preserved. The ed by an electric sign, rescued from the demoli- wall was stabilized by steel and wood bracing tion, which bears the theatre’s name. and scaffolding that were maintained through- In 2007 it was announced that the Dursts out the construction period. Hundreds of thou- would welcome back their old tenant, sands of dollars were spent to equip the four- Roundabout Theatre Company, to run Henry story edifice with motion sensors that would Miller’s Theatre as their third Times Square— automatically shut off construction equipment area stage, along with the American Airlines if the vibrations threatened its stability. Theatre, Studio 54, and the Off-Broadway Laura The new Henry Miller’s Theatre was Pels Theatre. Their lease runs twenty years. designed as part of the fifty-seven-story Bank The first production in the new theatre was of America Tower at One Bryant Park, which, the supposedly can’t-miss teen musical Bye Bye along with , headquarters of the Birdie (October 15, 2009), having its first Condé Nast publishing empire, at last fulfilled Broadway revival since its debut in 1960. The Seymour Durst’s dream of owning and rebuild- show starred John Stamos as Albert, Gina ing the entire city block on which they stand. Gershon as Rosie, Nolan Gerard Funk as Conrad, Designed by the firm of Cook + Fox, the and Bill Irwin as Mr. MacAfee. Unfortunately, 1,055-seat Henry Miller’s Theatre 2.0 is unusual the production was judged a letdown. Director for several reasons. Where most classic theatres Robert Longbottom was unable to accomplish were built with their orchestra sections opening what middle schools across the United States on the street, Henry Miller’s descends four sto- had been doing for the previous half-century: ries below the pavement, with the topmost rear have a hit with this feel-good show about an of the balcony at street level, and the orchestra Elvis-like rock star who kisses one of his fans on section and stage a level below that, accessible by the Ed Sullivan show as a publicity stunt before elevator and staircase. The trap beneath the being drafted into the army. Critics blamed mis- stage occupies a third underground level, along casting in several key roles, and the show closed with dressing rooms and an air-filtration room. in January 2010 after a disappointing ninety- The bottommost level is used for ice storage. two-performance run. Ice storage? The theatre/office complex is As happened with the opening of the original also notable for employing some of the latest playhouse in 1918, the best reviews went to the “green” technology, including systems that cap- theatre itself, which Ben Brantley of the New ture, filter, and recycle heat, water, and fresh air, York Times described as “handsomely renovat- plus walls made of recycled paper, men’s wash- ed. It seems ready to embark on a second fruit- rooms that employ waterless urinals (Caldwell B. ful life as a desirable up-to-date medium-size Cladwell would approve), and a women’s room theatre.” At this printing, singer Michael with nearly two dozen stalls. Though most seats Feinstein and Australian comic Dame Edna were are reachable only by stairs or an elevator, the planning to join forces for an evening of allied seats are wider and have more generous legroom music and laughs titled All About Me. than in nearly any other New York playhouse. On March 22, 2010, Roundabout Theatre Fragments of the old theatre were preserved, Company announced that Henry Miller’s Theatre including sculptural friezes, old doors, and the would be renamed the Stephen house-right upper corner of the proscenium, and after the preeminent theatre composer of the late are used as decoration in the new theatre. New twentieth century. Sondheim wept publicly at the wood was used in construction is North surprise announcement, which came from his American cherry harvested from a Forest longtime writing partners and John Stewardship Council (FSC)—certified forest. Weidman at a Studio 54 concert marking the com- But Henry Miller’s Theatre 2.0 might as poser’s eightieth birthday. The rechristening was well be called Anita Durst’s Theatre. Her dedi- secured by an anonymous group of Sondheim cation to its preservation is remembered in devotees who donated an undisclosed sum to Anita’s Way, the midblock —like Roundabout’s Musical Production Fund. pedestrian passageway that runs along the west Roundabout artistic director Todd Haimes called wall of the theatre between Forty-second and Sondheim “an artistic genius.”