Abbey's Park Theatre

Abbey's Park Theatre or Abbey's New Park Theatre was a playhouse at 932 Broadway and 22nd Street, New York City. It opened as the New Park Theatre in 1874, and was in use until 1882 when it burned down and was never rebuilt as a theatre.

The theatre stood on a plot of land 60 x 100 feet (20 x 30 meters). The façade was "plain and substantial, rather than ornamental." It was made of Philadelphia brick with trimmings of Nova Scotia stone.

The auditorium was 60 x 60 feet (20 x 20 m) with a parquet or orchestra circle, dress circle, and gallery. There were 12 proscenium boxes, six on each side of the stage. The stage was 34 x 60 feet and 52 feet to the girders. The proscenium was 26 feet wide and 24 feet to the top of the arch. The cost of the building (exclusive of the plot of land upon which it stood) was expected to be $100,000.

The color scheme in the auditorium was French gray, and gold, with lines of red for relief.

The New Park Theatre, designed by Frederic Draper, was built on the site of a previous theatre from May 1873-March 1874 by Dion Boucicault and William Stuart at a cost of $100,000.. They had previously been involved with the Winter Garden Theatre; Boucicault left in 1860 and it was destroyed in March 1867 in a fire which almost cost Stuart his life.

An advance description of the New Park appeared in the New York Times on 31 May 1872. In July 1872 Draper, the architect, put forward an enlarged design. This included buying an adjacent plot of land, whose rightful ownership was mired in litigation. The theatre was meant to open in October 1873 but a deadlock in litigation dragged on for so long that Boucicault and Stuart cancelled the opening. In the end another suitable plot came up for sale, and work progressed. The available artistes were re-engaged. By the end of March 1874 the work was nearly complete.

Boucicault had been announced to be interested in the management, but withdrew just before the theatre opened: and Stuart teamed up instead with the actor, playwright and theatre manager Charles Fechter to run the house. The New Park Theatre opened on 13 April or 15 April 1874 with William Stuart as manager, and Fechter appearing in his own play Love's Penance, an adaptation of Le médecin des enfants by Count d'Avrigny.Edwin Booth, who had been with Stuart at the Winter Garden, was fairly scathing about the whole enterprise:

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