Lyceum Theatre (New York, 1885-1902)

The Lyceum Theatre was a theatre in New York City located on Fourth Avenue, now Park Avenue South, between 23rd and 24th Streets in Manhattan. It was built in 1885 and operated until 1902, when it was torn down to make way for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. It was replaced by a new Lyceum Theatre on 45th Street. For most of its existence, the theatre was home to Daniel Frohman’s Lyceum Theatre Stock Company, which presented many important plays and actors of the day.

The three-story building’s auditorium was 75 feet (23 m) deep by 48.5 feet (14.8 m) wide, with a seating capacity of 727: boxes 88, parquet 344, dress circle 172, balcony 123. Thomas Edison is reported to have personally worked on making it the first theatre lit entirely by electricity (not the first to use electric lights), and Louis Comfort Tiffany designed aspects of the interior. Not all new technologies lasted: for the first season the orchestra rode an "automatic elevator car" into the fly gallery to play in a gallery over the proscenium during performances, but the car was removed in the theatre’s second year. Ticket prices initially ranged from $1 to $2.50.

Actor/playwright and theatre technology innovator Steele Mackaye and producer Gustave Frohman built the theatre as the base for the Lyceum School of Acting, to be run by them and Franklin H. Sargent. The school quickly became the New York School of Acting and then, by 1888, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA). Sargent soon left and after six months Mackaye and Frohman were forced to sell their interests to benefit Tiffany and other creditors. Actress Helen Dauvray then became manager, making her one of the first woman theatrical executives in the U.S. Gustave’s brother, the impresario Daniel Frohman, took over at the beginning of the theatre’s third season and stayed until it was demolished in 1902, when he established the Lyceum Theatre on 45th St.

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