Stephen Sondheim Theatre
The Stephen Sondheim Theatre in 2011
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| Address | 124 West 43rd Street Manhattan, New York City United States |
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| Coordinates | 40°45′21″N 73°59′06″W / 40.755869°N 73.985°W |
| Operator | Roundabout Theatre Company |
| Designation | Broadway theatre |
| Capacity | 1055 |
| Production | Beautiful: The Carole King Musical |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1918 |
| Rebuilt | 2004-2009 |
| Years active | 1918-1968; 2001-2004; 2009-2010 (Henry Miller's Theatre) 1998 (as Kit Kat Club) 2010-present (Stephen Sondheim Theatre) |
The Stephen Sondheim Theatre, formerly Henry Miller's Theatre, is a Broadway theatre operated by Roundabout Theatre Company, located at 124 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and 6th Avenue, in Manhattan's Theater District.
Designed in the Neo-classical style by architects Paul R. Allen and Ingalls & Hoffman, it was built by and named for actor-producer Henry Miller. His financial backers were Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, owner of the lot at 124 West 43rd, and Klaw & Erlanger. The original theatre had 950 seats. It opened on April 1, 1918 with the play The Fountain of Youth. It was the first air-conditioned theater in Manhattan.
The theatre had its first hit show with Noël Coward's The Vortex in 1926. Following Miller's death that year, the theater was managed by his son, Gilbert, who bought the Klaw & Erlanger interest and paid 25% of the gross take of each play he produced to the Milbank Memorial Fund, Anderson's legatee. From the 1930s through the late 1960s, the theater enjoyed its golden years, with performances by Helen Hayes, Leslie Howard, Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, and Ruth Chatterton gracing its stage.
In 1966, the Miller family sold the theatre to the Nederlanders, who sold it on in 1968 to Seymour Durst. It showed feature films as the Park-Miller until it became a porn theater called Avon-at-the-Hudson. In 1978, it was converted into the discotheque Xenon. On August 31, 1985, the space opened as SHOUT, a nightclub featuring music from the 1950s and 60s, which operated for six years. The space reopened in 1995 as Club Expo. In 1998, it returned to performance use as the Kit Kat Club, borrowing its name from the club featured in the popular revival of Cabaret it was then housing. It was rechristened the Henry Miller when Urinetown opened in 2001.
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