Helen Hayes Theater
| Little Theatre New York Times Hall |
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The Helen Hayes Theatre in 2007, showing Xanadu
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| Address | 240 West 44th Street New York City USA |
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| Owner | Second Stage Theatre |
| Type | Broadway |
| Capacity | 597 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | March 12, 1912 |
| Reopened | 1979 |
| Architect | Harry Creighton Ingalls |
Coordinates: 40°45′28″N 73°59′15″W / 40.75778°N 73.98750°W
Helen Hayes Theatre, (initially known as the Little Theatre), is a Broadway theatre located at 240 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan. With 597 seats, it is the smallest theatre on Broadway.
The Little Theatre was designed by the architect Harry Creighton Ingalls of the firm Ingalls & Hoffman, and built by Winthrop Ames; its name was chosen due to both the theatre's small size (with a seating capacity of only 300), and its goal to create intimate productions.
The theatre opened on March 12, 1912, with John Galsworthy's play The Pigeon. Other plays opening that year include:
In the 1920s, Herbert J. Krapp redesigned the theatre to increase its seating capacity to 590 and to improve its acoustics. In 1931, the building was sold to The New York Times and converted into a conference hall named New York Times Hall.
In 1979, Martin Markinson and Donald Tick bought the theatre from Westinghouse for $800,000.
The theatre was named for Helen Hayes in 1983 when the actress' existing namesake theatre on West 46th Street was demolished (along with the Morosco Theatre and the Bijou Theatre, to construct the New York Marriott Marquis. According to Playbill.com, "The tribute was deemed fitting by the theatrical community, since the first theatre bearing the name of Helen Hayes, on West Forty-sixth Street, had been torn down in 1982 to make way for the Marriott Marquis Hotel."
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