Casino Theatre (New York City)

The Casino Theatre was a Broadway theatre located at 1404 Broadway, at West 39th Street in New York City. Built in 1882, it was a leading presenter of mostly musicals and operettas until it closed in 1930.

The theatre was the first in New York to be lit entirely by electricity, popularized the chorus line and introduced white audiences to African-American shows. It originally seated approximately 875 people, however the theatre was enlarged and rebuilt in 1905 after a fire, and then seated 1,300. It hosted a number of long-running comic operas, operettas and musical comedies, including Erminie, Florodora, The Vagabond King and The Desert Song. It closed in 1930 and was demolished the same year.

The Casino Theatre, designed in Moorish Revival style by architects Francis Hatch Kimball and Thomas Wisedell, was the first theatre in New York to be lit entirely by electricity. It was built more than 15 blocks north of where the theatre district was then centered, 23rd Street. In 1890, New York's first roof garden was added to the theatre. It originally seated approximately 875 people, however the theatre was enlarged and rebuilt in 1905 after a fire in 1903. The redesigned Casino seated 1,300.

The theatre opened with productions by the McCaull Comic Opera Company. It was first managed by producer and composer Rudolph Aronson, and later by Canary & Lederer from 1894 to 1903, and from 1903 by the Shuberts. As the center of the Broadway theatre district moved uptown, north of 42nd Street, the Casino closed in 1930. It was demolished the same year, along with the nearby Knickerbocker Theatre, to make way for the expanding Garment District.

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