220-710: The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a Broadway theater in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City . Operated by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater (LCT), the Beaumont is the only Broadway theater outside the Theater District near Times Square . Named after heiress and actress Vivian Beaumont Allen , the theater was one of
440-595: A new workshop , overlooking the valley of the Lower Chevrière to the village of Saché in Indre-et-Loire (France). He donated to the town a sculpture , which since 1974 has been situated in the town square. Throughout his artistic career, Calder named many of his works in French, regardless of where they were destined for eventual display. In 1966, Calder published his Autobiography with Pictures with
660-419: A peristyle flanking the curtain wall. Unlike the travertine surface of the plaza, the columns are finished in exposed aggregate . The columns are attached to the attic via steel pins with large bronze pyramidal covers. The other wall surfaces are clad in travertine. The exterior of the library–theater building contains a heavy roof that protrudes over the main facade, which is covered in travertine. The roof
880-570: A 1.8-acre, indoor-outdoor center dedicated to Calder's work is set to open on Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway by late 2024. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Calder's works were not highly sought after, and when they sold, it was often for relatively little money. A copy of a Pierre Matisse sales ledger in the foundation's files shows that only a few pieces in the 1941 show found buyers, one of whom, Solomon R. Guggenheim , paid only $ 233.34 (equivalent to $ 4,834 in 2023) for
1100-472: A 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. "curtain". The afternoon " matinée " performances are at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays and at 3:00 p.m. on Sundays. This makes for an eight-performance week. On this schedule, most shows do not play on Monday and the shows and theatres are said to be "dark" on that day. The actors and the crew in these shows tend to regard Sunday evening through Monday evening as their weekend. The Tony award presentation ceremony
1320-839: A Theater Advisory Council, which included Papp. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City , Broadway theaters closed on March 12, 2020, shuttering 16 shows that were playing or were in the process of opening. The Broadway League shutdown was extended first to April, then to May, then June, then September 2020 and January 2021, and later to June 1, 2021. Then-governor Andrew Cuomo announced that most sectors of New York would have their restrictions lifted on May 19, 2021, but he stated that Broadway theatres would not be able to immediately resume performances on this date due to logistical reasons. In May 2021, Cuomo announced that Broadway theaters would be allowed to reopen on September 14, and
1540-449: A booming economy and abundant creative talent kept Broadway hopping. To this day, the shows of the 1950s form the core of the musical theatre repertory." Kenrick notes that "the late 1960s marked a time of cultural upheaval. All those changes would prove painful for many, including those behind the scenes, as well as those in the audience." Of the 1970s, Kenrick writes: "Just when it seemed that traditional book musicals were back in style,
1760-682: A career as an artist. In New York City, Calder enrolled at the Art Students League , studying briefly with George Luks , Boardman Robinson , and John Sloan . While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus . Calder became fascinated with the circus action, a theme that would reappear in his later work. In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in
1980-663: A cast. There are still, however, performers who are primarily stage actors, spending most of their time "on the boards", and appearing in screen roles only secondarily. As Patrick Healy of The New York Times noted: Broadway once had many homegrown stars who committed to working on a show for a year, as Nathan Lane has for The Addams Family . In 2010, some theater heavyweights like Mr. Lane were not even nominated; instead, several Tony Awards were given for productions that were always intended to be short-timers on Broadway, given that many of their film-star performers had to move on to other commitments. According to Mark Shenton, "One of
2200-434: A challenge to the stage. At first, films were silent and presented only limited competition. By the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer were presented with synchronized sound, and critics wondered if cinema would replace live theatre altogether. While live vaudeville could not compete with these inexpensive films that featured vaudeville stars and major comedians of the day, other theatres survived. The musicals of
2420-407: A choreography due to their rhythmic movement. In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals. His projects from this period include pen-and-ink line drawings of animals for a 1931 publication of Aesop 's fables. As Calder's sculpture moved into
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#17327833294682640-540: A company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia , and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist . The company moved to New York in 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida . During the Revolutionary War , theatre was suspended in New York City. But after
2860-511: A design with which Harris agreed. As a result, Koch withdrew his $ 1 million grant. Though a new restoration architect was not appointed for several months afterward, Philip Johnson was reportedly working with Harris. Due to increasing renovation costs, Lincoln Center's board considered delaying the renovation indefinitely by mid-1982. The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation withdrew its $ 4 million grant in November 1982. Leslie R. Samuels said
3080-644: A detailed report about their goals, missions, and operations. Accordingly, former New York City mayor John Lindsay was appointed as the Beaumont's chairman in September 1984, and Crinkley stepped down the next month. Lindsay submitted a report at the end of that November, promising an "artistic purpose" and proposing a partnership with Juilliard. Gregory Mosher was hired as the director of the Lincoln Center Theater in April 1985, and Bernard Gersten
3300-565: A discount of 20 to 50%. The TKTS booths are located in Times Square , in Lower Manhattan , and at Lincoln Center . This service is run by Theatre Development Fund . Many Broadway theatres also offer special student rates, same-day "rush" or "lottery" tickets, or standing-room tickets to help ensure that their theatres are as full—and their grosses as high—as possible. According to The Broadway League , total Broadway attendance
3520-645: A dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa , Horizon , and most notably, Martha Graham 's Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968). Works in Progress was a "ballet" conceived by Calder himself and produced at the Rome Opera House , featuring an array of mobiles, stabiles, and large painted backdrops. Calder would describe some of his stage sets as dancers performing
3740-467: A federal judge ruled that for Rio Nero the burden of proof had not been fulfilled. Despite the decision, the owners of the mobile could not sell it because the recognized expert, Klaus Perls , had declared it a copy. The judge recognized the problem at the time, noting that Perls' pronouncement would make Rio Nero unsellable. In 1994, the Calder Foundation declined to include the mobile in
3960-906: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until World War I . A few very successful British musicals continued to achieve great success in New York, including Florodora in 1900–01. In the early years of the twentieth century, translations of popular late-nineteenth century continental operettas were joined by the "Princess Theatre" shows of the 1910s, by writers such as P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton , and Harry B. Smith . Victor Herbert , whose work included some intimate musical plays with modern settings as well as his string of famous operettas ( The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906), and Naughty Marietta (1910)). Beginning with The Red Mill , Broadway shows installed electric signs outside
4180-532: A larger theatre. Other productions are first developed through workshops and then out-of-town tryouts before transferring to Broadway. Merrily We Roll Along famously skipped an out-of-town tryout and attempted to do an in-town tryout—actually preview performances —on Broadway before its official opening, with disastrous results. After, or even during, successful runs in Broadway theatres, producers often remount their productions with new casts and crew for
4400-423: A model of his work, the engineering department would scale it up under Calder's direction, and technicians would complete the actual metalwork — all under Calder's watchful eye. Stabiles were made in steel plate, then painted. An exception was Trois disques , in stainless steel at 24 metres (79 ft) tall, commissioned by International Nickel Company of Canada . In 1958, Calder asked Jean Prouvé to construct
4620-526: A more experimental, challenging, and intimate performance than is possible in the larger Broadway theatres. Some Broadway shows, however, such as the musicals Hair , Little Shop of Horrors , Spring Awakening , Next to Normal , Rent , Avenue Q , In the Heights , Fun Home , A Chorus Line , Dear Evan Hansen , and Hamilton , began their runs Off-Broadway and later transferred to Broadway, seeking to replicate their intimate experience in
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#17327833294684840-539: A negative COVID-19 test (PCR within 72 hours or antigen within six hours of the performance start time). Beginning November 8, those ages 5–11 also had the option to provide proof of at least one vaccination shot. Effective December 14, in accordance with NYC's vaccination mandate, guests ages 5–11 were required to have at least one vaccination shot until January 29, 2022, where they had to be fully vaccinated. The vaccine mandate lasted until April 30, and attendees were also required to wear face masks until July 1. During
5060-1152: A new age of American playwright with the emergence of Eugene O'Neill , whose plays Beyond the Horizon , Anna Christie , The Hairy Ape , Strange Interlude , and Mourning Becomes Electra proved that there was an audience for serious drama on Broadway, and O'Neill's success paved the way for major dramatists like Elmer Rice , Maxwell Anderson , Robert E. Sherwood , Clifford Odets , Tennessee Williams , and Arthur Miller , as well as writers of comedy like George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart . Classical revivals also proved popular with Broadway theatre-goers, notably John Barrymore in Hamlet and Richard III , John Gielgud in Hamlet , The Importance of Being Earnest and Much Ado About Nothing , Walter Hampden and José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac , Paul Robeson and Ferrer in Othello , Maurice Evans in Richard II and
5280-742: A preface for the catalogue of Calder's first exhibition of abstract constructions held at the Galerie Percier in 1931. Calder and Louisa returned to America in 1933 to a farmhouse they purchased in Roxbury, Connecticut , where they raised a family (Sandra born 1935, Mary born 1939). During World War II , Calder attempted to join the Marines as a camoufleur (see List of camoufleurs ), but was rejected. In 1955 he and Louisa traveled through India for three months, where Calder produced nine sculptures as well as some jewelry. In 1963, Calder settled into
5500-500: A rate acceptable to the producers, they may continue to run in the expectation that, eventually, they will pay back their initial costs and become profitable. In some borderline situations, producers may ask that royalties be temporarily reduced or waived, or even that performers—with the permission of their unions—take reduced salaries, to prevent a show from closing. Theatre owners, who are not generally profit participants in most productions, may waive or reduce rents, or even lend money to
5720-454: A rehearsal room below the stage and renovating the lobby. In July 1980, the directors announced the lineup for the 1980–1981 season, which began in October with a rehearsal of Philip Barry 's comedy The Philadelphia Story . The two other plays that season were a revival of Macbeth and Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb . The poor reception to the three plays prompted Crinkley to keep
5940-464: A revival of Macbeth , during 2013. James Lapine 's play Act One premiered the following year. Next, a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I opened in April 2015 and ran for 499 performances. J. T. Rogers 's play Oslo and Ayad Akhtar 's play Junk were then performed during 2017, and Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner 's musical My Fair Lady was revived at
6160-431: A run of 253 performances. The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and original music that helped to tell the story, is considered to be The Black Crook , which premiered in New York on September 12, 1866. The production was five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and
6380-539: A season. The Beaumont was managed by the New York Shakespeare Festival , under the direction of Joseph Papp , from 1973 to 1977. Richmond Crinkley took over the theater for the next eight years, with the Beaumont only operating for two seasons during that time. Controversies over the Beaumont's operation, a proposed renovation, and financial difficulties led to LCT being reorganized in 1985, with Gregory Mosher and Bernard Gersten taking over as
6600-464: A shallower raked floor, and the seating capacity would be increased to 1,200. The Beaumont's renovation was planned to cost $ 6.5 million and begin in November 1981, but the renovation soon encountered delays, as Harris and Pei could not reconcile their disagreement over the proscenium opening's acoustic and esthetic features. Pei resigned from the project in February 1982 after he was unable to propose
6820-556: A shape or line if necessary. In the 1950s, Calder concentrated more on producing monumental sculptures (his agrandissements period), and public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 (1957) for JFK Airport in New York, Spirale (1958) for UNESCO in Paris, and Trois disques , commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture, at 25.7 metres (84 ft) high,
Vivian Beaumont Theater - Misplaced Pages Continue
7040-481: A show to keep it running. Some Broadway shows are produced by non-commercial organizations as part of a regular subscription season— Lincoln Center Theatre , Roundabout Theatre Company , Manhattan Theatre Club , and Second Stage Theater are the four non-profit theatre companies that currently have permanent Broadway venues. Some other productions are produced on Broadway with "limited engagement runs" for several reasons, including financial issues, prior engagements of
7260-434: A small group of works from around this period with a hanging base-plate, for example Lily of Force (1945), Baby Flat Top (1946), and Red is Dominant (1947). He also made works such as Seven Horizontal Discs (1946), which, like Lily of Force (1945) and Baby Flat Top (1946), he was able to dismantle and send by mail for his upcoming show at Galerie Louis Carré in Paris, despite the stringent size restrictions imposed by
7480-505: A successful repertory theater" was the complex's "greatest shortcoming" creatively. The experimental Forum in the Beaumont's basement opened on November 10, 1967. The third season featured the plays The Little Foxes , Saint Joan , Tiger at the Gates , and Cyrano de Bergerac . As part of the 1968 Lincoln Center Festival, French theatre company Théâtre de la Cité performed The Three Musketeers , George Dandin , and Tartuffe at
7700-619: A term that can also apply to non-commercial, avant-garde , or productions held outside of traditional theater venues. The Theater District is an internationally prominent tourist attraction in New York City . According to The Broadway League , shows on Broadway sold approximately US$ 1.54 billion worth of tickets in both the 2022-2023 and the 2023–2024 seasons. Both seasons featured theater attendance of approximately 12.3 million each. Most Broadway shows are musicals . Historian Martin Shefter argues that "Broadway musicals, culminating in
7920-565: A total price of $ 100,000. Two years later, Braniff asked Calder to design a flagship for their fleet celebrating the U.S. Bicentennial. That piece, a Boeing 727-291 jet N408BN called the Flying Colors of the United States , and nicknamed the 'Sneaky Snake' by its pilots (based on quirky flight tendencies), featured a rippled image of red, white and blue echoing a waving American flag. A third design, to be dubbed Salute to Mexico ,
8140-455: A typical Broadway theater. After Papp's sudden departure, Lincoln Center's directors hurried to make arrangements with other producers and theatrical companies to keep the Beaumont open. During its closure, the Beaumont held a benefit party for Paul Robeson in August 1977. American National Theater and Academy director Richmond Crinkley was named as the Beaumont's director in early 1978. At
8360-580: A venue for plays under the name Burton's Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847. A riot broke out in 1849 when the lower-class patrons of the Bowery Theatre objected to what they perceived as snobbery by the upper-class audiences at Astor Place: "After the Astor Place Riot of 1849, entertainment in New York City was divided along class lines: opera was chiefly for the upper-middle and upper classes, minstrel shows and melodramas for
8580-602: A view of works by three generations of Alexander Calders. From the second floor window on the east side of the Great Stair Hall (on the opposite side from the armor collection) there is behind the viewer Calder's own Ghost mobile, ahead on the street is the Swann Memorial Fountain by his father, A. Stirling Calder , and beyond that the statue of William Penn atop City Hall by Calder's grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder . Calder Gardens ,
8800-493: A work. The Museum of Modern Art had bought its first Calder in 1934 for $ 60, after talking Calder down from $ 100. And yet by 1948 Calder nearly sold out an entire solo show in Rio de Janeiro, becoming the first internationally renowned sculptor. Galerie Maeght in Paris became Calder's exclusive Parisian dealer in 1950 and for the rest of Calder's life. After his New York dealer Curt Valentin died unexpectedly in 1954, Calder selected
9020-466: Is arranged in a semicircle with its ends cut back, allowing adequate sightlines when a traditional proscenium stage is used. A cantilevered walkway leads to the balcony level, which only has five rows of seats, two of which cantilever over the orchestra. In all configurations, every seat is at most 65 ft (20 m) from the stage. The American Seating Company installed the seats, which were originally upholstered in red fabric. Plaques were mounted onto
Vivian Beaumont Theater - Misplaced Pages Continue
9240-545: Is carried by two Vierendeel trusses measuring 20 ft (6.1 m) high and 153 ft (47 m) long. Part of the library, housing the Vincent Astor Gallery , is placed between the trusses. The Beaumont contains three theaters operated by Lincoln Center Theater (LCT): the main auditorium, which is classified as a Broadway theater, as well as two off-Broadway venues, the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and
9460-412: Is made of glass and steel, with a travertine attic above. The main auditorium has approximately 1,080 seats across two levels, arranged in a steeply sloped semicircular layout. The Beaumont differs from traditional Broadway theaters because of its use of a flexible stage, which could be extended with a thrust stage of varying length. The layout led to complaints about inferior sightlines and acoustics in
9680-558: Is named for Claire Tow, whose husband Leonard Tow , an LCT board member, donated $ 7.5 million. Located on the Beaumont's planted green roof, the Claire Tow Theater seats 112 people and cost about $ 41 million to construct. The space was designed by Hugh Hardy , who had assisted Mielziner in the Vivian Beaumont Theater's original design. The two-story, 23,000 sq ft (2,100 m) glass enclosure has
9900-476: Is on the western side of Paul Milstein Pool and Terrace, the elevated plaza at the middle of Lincoln Center, just south of 65th Street. The plaza contains a reflecting pool at its center, measuring around 80 ft (24 m) wide and 120 or 125 ft (37 or 38 m) long. Inside the plaza, just outside the theater's entrance, is a blackened-steel sculpture by Alexander Calder entitled Le Guichet . Named after
10120-562: Is one of the best natured fellows there is." In the summer of 1916, Calder spent five weeks training at the Plattsburgh Civilian Military Training Camp . In 1918, he joined the Student's Army Training Corps, Naval Section, at Stevens and was made guide of the battalion. Calder received a degree from Stevens in 1919. He held a variety of jobs including hydraulic engineer and draughtsman for
10340-443: Is something exciting in the way the action spills out into the audience and the audience embraces it." For productions that use only the thrust stage, performers enter from underneath the stage, and the proscenium is closed off. Various tunnels were provided under the seating areas for this purpose. Since the semicircular seating precluded good views of the rear of the proscenium stage, many of the theater's productions were forced to use
10560-412: Is used. Additional seats can be removed to make way for vomitories . Consequently, the theater could have 1,146 seats if a proscenium stage were used, or 1,102 seats if there was an orchestra pit in front of the stage. In a thrust-stage configuration, the theater could have 1,113 seats, which was reduced to 1,083 if actors were allowed to pass through the orchestra seating to get to the stage. The seating
10780-571: Is usually held on a Sunday evening in June to fit this schedule. In recent years, some shows have moved their Tuesday show time an hour earlier to 7:00 pm. The rationale for this move was that since fewer tourists take in shows midweek, Tuesday attendance depends more on local patrons. The earlier curtain makes it possible for suburban patrons to get home by a reasonable hour after the show. Some shows, especially those produced by Disney , change their performance schedules fairly frequently depending on
11000-641: The Académie de la Grande Chaumière , and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter . In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905–1996), a daughter of Edward Holton James and grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James . They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder befriended a number of avant-garde artists, including Joan Miró , Fernand Léger , Jean Arp , and Marcel Duchamp . Leger wrote
11220-610: The American Theatre Wing , a service organization. While the League and the theatrical unions are sometimes at loggerheads during those periods when new contracts are being negotiated, they also cooperate on many projects and events designed to promote professional theatre in New York. Of the four non-profit theatre companies with Broadway theatres, all four ( Lincoln Center Theater , Manhattan Theatre Club , Roundabout Theatre Company , and Second Stage Theatre ) belong to
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#173278332946811440-580: The League of Resident Theatres and have contracts with the theatrical unions which are negotiated separately from the other Broadway theatre and producers. ( Disney also negotiates apart from the League, as did Livent before it closed down its operations.) The majority of Broadway theatres are owned or managed by three organizations: the Shubert Organization , a for-profit arm of the non-profit Shubert Foundation, which owns seventeen theatres;
11660-503: The Nederlander Organization , which controls nine theatres; and ATG Entertainment , which owns seven Broadway houses. Both musicals and straight plays on Broadway often rely on casting well-known performers in leading roles to draw larger audiences or bring in new audience members to the theatre. Actors from film and television are frequently cast for the revivals of Broadway shows or are used to replace actors leaving
11880-599: The New York Edison Company . In June 1922, Calder took a mechanic position on the passenger ship H. F. Alexander . While sailing from San Francisco to New York City, Calder slept on deck and awoke one early morning off the Guatemalan Coast and witnessed both the sun rising and the full moon setting on opposite horizons. He described in his autobiography, "It was early one morning on a calm sea, off Guatemala, when over my couch—a coil of rope—I saw
12100-466: The Perls Galleries in New York as his new American dealer, and this alliance lasted until Calder's death. In 2010, his metal mobile Untitled (Autumn Leaves) , sold at Sotheby's New York for $ 3.7 million. Another mobile brought $ 6.35 million at Christie's later that year. Also at Christie's, a standing mobile called Lily of Force (1945), which was expected to sell for $ 8 to $ 12 million,
12320-476: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall , and other light entertainment, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs. Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together. Typical of
12540-682: The Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway , in Midtown Manhattan , New York City . Broadway and London 's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world . While the Broadway thoroughfare is eponymous with the district, it is closely identified with Times Square . Only three theaters are located on Broadway itself: Broadway Theatre , Palace Theatre , and Winter Garden Theatre . The rest are located on
12760-577: The Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, where he observed a four-horse-chariot race. This style of event later became the finale of Calder's miniature circus performances. In late 1909 the family returned to Philadelphia, where Calder briefly attended Germantown Academy , then they moved to Croton-on-Hudson, New York . That Christmas, he sculpted a dog and a duck out of sheet brass as gifts for his parents. The sculptures are three-dimensional and
12980-409: The 1920s were lighthearted productions such as Sally ; Lady Be Good ; Sunny ; No, No, Nanette ; Harlem ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from George Gershwin , Cole Porter , Jerome Kern , Vincent Youmans , and Rodgers and Hart , among others, and Noël Coward , Sigmund Romberg , and Rudolf Friml continued in
13200-405: The 1973–1974 season, they would book a "guest season" of shows from regional theaters. The guest season would run for one year, allowing the Lincoln Center Theater to search for a new artistic leader and give them time to transition into the job. In March 1973, Joseph Papp of the New York Shakespeare Festival agreed to take over the Beaumont as long as he were able to raise $ 5 million. Papp used
13420-482: The 1978–1979 season. Papp announced in June 1977 that he would no longer operate the Beaumont, citing increasing operating costs. As a result, The Cherry Orchard was forced to close prematurely in August 1977, with Lincoln Center's directors warning that the theater might be closed for two years. At the time, even a successful season could incur a deficit of $ 2 million; the previous season had seen operating debts of $ 6.2 million and ticket sales of only $ 3.9 million. This
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#173278332946813640-558: The Arts . In 1971, Calder created his Bent Propeller which was installed at the entrance of the World Trade Center 's North Tower in New York City. When Battery Park City opened, the sculpture was moved to Vesey and Church Streets. The sculpture stood in front of 7 World Trade Center until it was destroyed on September 11, 2001 . In 1973, the 63-foot tall (19 m) vermillion-colored public art sculpture Four Arches
13860-722: The Beaumont Theater was completed. The theatre company began training in October 1962 and moved into the ANTA Washington Square Theatre , a temporary venue in Greenwich Village , in January 1964. Due to conflicts with Lincoln Center president William Schuman , Whitehead and Kazan resigned and were replaced by Herbert Blau and Jules Irving . By April 1965, Schuman and the repertory company's new president Robert L. Hoguet Jr. promised that
14080-502: The Beaumont an award for the quality of its construction. The Beaumont frequently starred Philip Bosco , Aline MacMahon , Nancy Marchand , and Robert Symonds in its early productions. The Lincoln Center Repertory Company offered subscriptions to each season of plays at the Beaumont. When the first preview of Danton's Death commenced, there were already 41,500 subscribers for the Beaumont's first season, representing over 90 percent of all available subscriptions. The other productions of
14300-580: The Beaumont and conducting renovations. The plans included relocating the Forum behind the Beaumont's stage and adding three film screens in the Forum space. Mielziner opposed the plans, saying it would compromise the quality of the Beaumont's design, but supporters said the main auditorium would not be touched and that the Forum would only be relocated to a better location. That September, the New York City Board of Estimate approved $ 5.2 million for
14520-407: The Beaumont board were still in effect, prompting renewed discussions. The Greek National Troupe performed Oedipus Rex in 1984. The directors of Lincoln Center and the Beaumont reached an agreement in June 1984 in which the Beaumont's management would be reorganized in exchange for the lifting of restrictions. Ten board members and a new chairman would be hired, the Beaumont's board had to publish
14740-449: The Beaumont in November 1990, running for 485 performances. LCT started booking solo engagements during nights when shows did not run, starting with Spalding Gray 's Monster in a Box monologue in 1991. After André Bishop replaced Mosher in early 1992, Guare's play Four Baboons Adoring the Sun opened at the Beaumont. The musical version of My Favorite Year opened that December, but it
14960-476: The Beaumont to operate as a League of Resident Theatres' venue, thereby decreasing operating costs. The theater's directors wished to raise $ 2 million in reserves before reopening the theater, and they wanted to operate for at least one full season. Consequently, the planned reopening in 1979 was pushed back by one year. Crinkley's team wanted to present classics alongside the occasional new production. The directors spent $ 2 million on improvements, including adding
15180-481: The Beaumont to present new productions and continued to stage experimental shows at The Public Theater . The Forum in the basement would be used for classical plays, a reversal of Irving's policy. Mitzi Newhouse gave Papp a grant of $ 1 million that May, the largest individual grant ever made for the Shakespeare Festival, and the Forum was named for Newhouse. The Shakespeare Festival's first production at
15400-451: The Beaumont with a permanent proscenium stage. In accordance with his new policy, Papp scheduled four revivals for the 1975–1976 season: Trelawny of the "Wells" , Hamlet , Mrs. Warren's Profession , and The Threepenny Opera . These plays were generally much more successful, and The Threepenny Opera was extended through the end of 1976. The lengthy run of The Threepenny Opera , as well as financial shortfalls, prompted Papp to delay
15620-514: The Beaumont's board raise $ 3 million for a renovation before the end of 1983. Another point of contention was responsibility over maintenance; the NYPL was paying all maintenance expenses for the library–theater building while the Beaumont stood dark, which cost the library an additional $ 150,000 from 1981 to 1983. Crinkley even objected to the Lincoln Center board's decision in mid-1983 to book
15840-633: The Beaumont, David Rabe 's play In the Boom Boom Room , opened in November 1973 and was followed the next year by Hugh Miller 's The Au Pair Man , Ron Milner 's What the Wine Sellers Buy , and Miguel Piñero 's Short Eyes . Of these, only Short Eyes was successful. During the 1974–1975 season, the Shakespeare Festival presented Anne Burr 's Mert & Phil , Bill Gunn 's Black Picture Show , Henrik Ibsen 's A Doll's House , and Anthony Scully's Little Black Sheep . As with
16060-437: The Beaumont. Furthermore, the theater itself ran a deficit of several hundred thousand dollars each season, as the expenses outweighed the profits. The theater had 31,400 subscribers before the first play of the Beaumont's second season opened in late 1966. The season's first two plays were The Alchemist and Yerma . Blau left at the beginning of 1967, saying: "The climate is no longer right for me to do what I came to do in
16280-555: The Beaumont. This was followed by the play Lovers , also performed as part of the festival . The plays King Lear and A Cry of Players opened at the Beaumont in late 1968, running as a double bill. At the beginning of 1969, Robert Montgomery became the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater's president. The Beaumont hosted the play In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer during much of the remainder of
16500-536: The Broadway national tour, which travels to theatres in major cities across the country. Sometimes when a show closes on Broadway, the entire production, with most if not all of the original cast intact, is relaunched as a touring company, hence the name "Broadway national tour". Some shows may even have several touring companies out at a time, whether the show is still running in New York or not, with many companies "sitting down" in other major cities for their own extended runs. For Broadway national tours of top-tier cities,
16720-619: The Broadway orchestra is governed by an agreement with the musicians' union (Local 802, American Federation of Musicians) and The Broadway League. For example, the agreement specifies the minimum size of the orchestra at the Minskoff Theatre to be eighteen, while at the Music Box Theatre it is nine. Most Broadway shows are commercial productions intended to make a profit for the producers and investors ("backers" or "angels"), and therefore have open-ended runs (duration that
16940-738: The COVID-19 shutdown, the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, and Jujamcyn had pledged to increase racial and cultural diversity in their theaters, including naming at least one theater for a Black theatrical personality. The August Wilson Theatre , owned by Jujamcyn, had been renamed after Black playwright August Wilson in 2005. The Shuberts announced in March 2022 that the Cort Theatre , which
17160-574: The Cakewalk (1898), and the highly successful In Dahomey (1902). Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 1900s made up of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley involving composers such as Gus Edwards , John Walter Bratton , and George M. Cohan ( Little Johnny Jones (1904), 45 Minutes From Broadway (1906), and George Washington Jr. (1906)). Still, New York runs continued to be relatively short, with
17380-557: The Calder Foundation is now focusing on organizing global exhibitions for the artist. One of Calder's grandsons, Alexander S. C. "Sandy" Rower, is the president of the foundation and other family members are on the board of trustees. The Calder Foundation does not authenticate artworks; rather, owners can submit their works for registration in the Foundation's archive and for examination. The committee that performs examinations includes experts, scholars, museum curators, and members of
17600-596: The Calder family. The Calder Foundation's website provides details on the current policies and guidelines governing examination procedures. In 1993, the owners of Rio Nero (1959), a sheet-metal and steel-wire mobile ostensibly by Calder, went to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia charging that it was not by Alexander Calder, as claimed by its seller. That same year,
17820-726: The Calders moved to Spuyten Duyvil to be closer to New York City, where Stirling Calder rented a studio. While living in Spuyten Duyvil, Calder attended high school in nearby Yonkers . In 1912, Calder's father was appointed acting chief of the Department of Sculpture of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California, and began work on sculptures for the exposition that
18040-434: The Claire Tow Theater. The main auditorium is the only Broadway theater outside Manhattan's Theater District , and productions there are eligible for Tony Awards . The off-Broadway houses' productions are not eligible for Tony Awards unless they move to the Beaumont or another Broadway theater. The Beaumont has two main access points. Vehicular traffic enters through a ramp beneath the theater, where patrons take elevators to
18260-456: The Erlanger syndicate. During this time, the play Lightnin' by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon became the first Broadway show to reach 700 performances. From then, it would go on to become the first show to reach 1,000 performances. Lightnin' was the longest-running Broadway show until being overtaken in performance totals by Abie's Irish Rose in 1925. The motion picture mounted
18480-710: The Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France (1969), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). In addition, both of Calder's dealers, Galerie Maeght in Paris and the Perls Galleries in New York, averaged about one Calder show each per year. Calder's work is in many permanent collections across the world. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, has the largest body of work by Alexander Calder. Other museum collections include
18700-560: The French word for "ticket window", the sculpture measures 14 ft (4.3 m) wide by 22 ft (6.7 m) high. Another sculpture by Henry Moore , entitled Reclining Figure , is in the pool. The structure faces the Metropolitan Opera House to the south; David Geffen Hall to the east; and the Juilliard School to the north, via a pedestrian bridge across 65th Street. The library–theater building
18920-473: The Heart in 2000 and the play QED in 2001. Barbara Cook performed the concert series Mostly Sondheim in 2002, followed later that year by the play Dinner at Eight . The Beaumont's 2003–2004 season saw the opening of two Shakespeare revivals ( Part 1 and Part 2 of Henry IV and King Lear ), succeeded by another Barbara Cook concert. During late 2004, the Beaumont hosted the musical The Frogs and
19140-457: The League confirmed that performances would begin to resume in the fall season. Springsteen on Broadway became the first full-length show to resume performances, opening on June 26, 2021, to 1,721 vaccinated patrons at the St. James Theatre . Pass Over then had its first preview on August 4, and opened on August 22, 2021, becoming the first new play to open. Hadestown and Waitress were
19360-496: The Lincoln Center Repertory Theater had scheduled four shows for the Beaumont's seventh season in 1971–1972. Mary Stuart opened in late 1971, followed the next year by Narrow Road to the Deep North , Twelfth Night , and The Crucible . The musical Man of La Mancha , which was not part of the regular season, was revived in mid-1972 to large success. The Beaumont's 1972–1973 season featured Enemies , The Plough and
19580-529: The Museum of Modern Art, and was one of three Americans to be included in Alfred H. Barr Jr. 's 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art . Calder's first retrospective was held in 1938 at George Walter Vincent Smith Gallery in Springfield, Massachusetts . In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art hosted a Calder retrospective, curated by James Johnson Sweeney and Marcel Duchamp ; the show had to be extended due to
19800-527: The Newhouse and Beaumont. The 1989–1990 season at the Beaumont consisted of two shows: a revival of Paddy Chayefsky 's play The Tenth Man and a transfer of Richard Nelson 's play Some Americans Abroad . The Beaumont was renovated between these engagements. The renovation cost $ 1.6 million and included repairing the roof and travertine surfaces, reupholstering the seats, and adding carpets and handrails. The Guare play Six Degrees of Separation opened at
20020-604: The Opera at the Majestic Theatre became the longest-running Broadway musical, with 7,486 performances, overtaking Cats . The Phantom of the Opera closed on Broadway on April 16, 2023, soon after celebrating its 35th anniversary, after a total of 13,981 performances. Attending a Broadway show is a common tourist activity in New York. The TKTS booths sell same-day tickets (and in certain cases, next-day matinee tickets) for many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows at
20240-535: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy". Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham . These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from
20460-866: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía , Madrid; the Seattle Art Museum ; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. There are two pieces on display in the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY. The Philadelphia Museum of Art offers
20680-463: The Spanish pavilion included Calder's sculpture Mercury Fountain . During World War II , Calder continued to sculpt, adapting to a scarcity of aluminum during the war by returning to carved wood in a new open form of sculpture called "constellations". Postwar, Calder began to cut shapes from sheet metal into evocative forms and hand-paint them in his characteristically bold hues. Calder created
20900-516: The Stars , The Merchant of Venice , and A Streetcar Named Desire . By then, the Forum was mostly screening films. The Forum's season was canceled in October 1972 due to a lack of funds, and Irving resigned as the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater's artistic director as a direct result. Lincoln Center had granted $ 150,000 to fund the Beaumont's eighth season but was unwilling to repeat the grant. With Irving gone, Lincoln Center's board decided that, for
21120-575: The Western World , An Enemy of the People , and Antigone . The Beaumont still ran at a deficit, despite near-capacity attendance. Amyas Ames, who had become Lincoln Center's chairman in 1970, found the Beaumont Theater was losing $ 750,000 a year. Lincoln Center's directors forgave $ 200,000 of the repertory company's debts and agreed to provide another $ 125,000 a year to cover high overhead costs. In January 1971, City Center proposed taking over
21340-410: The age of eight for his sister's dolls using copper wire that he found in the street. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró , Calder set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard that shimmered with dangling fish. In 1942, Guggenheim wore one Calder earring and one by Yves Tanguy to
21560-517: The art and archives of Alexander Calder and [is] charged with an unmatched collection of his works". The foundation has large holdings, with some works owned by family members and others by foundation supporters. The art includes more than 600 sculptures including mobiles, stabiles, standing mobiles, and wire sculptures, and 22 monumental outdoor works, as well as thousands of oil paintings, works on paper, toys, pieces of jewelry, and domestic objects. After having worked mainly on cataloging Calder's works,
21780-510: The artist was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the United States' highest civilian honor, by President Gerald Ford . However, representatives of the Calder family boycotted the January 10, 1977, ceremony "to make a statement favoring amnesty for Vietnam War draft resisters ". In 1987, the Calder Foundation was established by Calder's family, "dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, preserving, and interpreting
22000-611: The artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin , a friend from the cafes of Montparnasse , wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian 's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art , toward which he had already been tending. It was the mixture of his experiments to develop purely abstract sculpture following his visit with Mondrian that led to his first truly kinetic sculptures, actuated by motors, that would become his signature artworks. Calder's kinetic sculptures are regarded as being among
22220-492: The authors and also in numerous unlicensed productions). They were imitated in New York by American productions such as Reginald Dekoven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896), along with operas, ballets, and other British and European hits. Charles H. Hoyt 's A Trip to Chinatown (1891) became Broadway's long-run champion when it surpassed Adonis and its 603 total performances in 1893, holding
22440-435: The backs of each seat, indicating the seat number and the name of a donor. The seats were covered with deep burgundy fabric in 1990. The auditorium had a minimalist decorative scheme. The original decorations comprised dark brown wood and metal, as well as red and gray carpets. The design includes curving oval motifs, which visually connect the two levels of seating with the stage and ceiling. The aisle lights were recessed into
22660-457: The beginning of a fiery red sunrise on one side and the moon looking like a silver coin on the other." The H.F. Alexander docked in San Francisco and Calder traveled to Aberdeen, Washington , where his sister and her husband, Kenneth Hayes resided. Calder took a job as a timekeeper at a logging camp. The mountain scenery inspired him to write home to request paints and brushes. Shortly after this, Calder decided to move back to New York to pursue
22880-457: The beginning of the following season to February 1977, canceling two of the four shows scheduled for the season. Anton Chekhov 's play The Cherry Orchard and Aeschylus 's classic Agamemnon were the only plays featured during that season. Papp presented plans for a $ 6.5 million renovation of the Beaumont to Lincoln Center's directors in April 1977. Giorgio Cavaglieri designed a new flexible auditorium, which if approved would be built during
23100-435: The beginning of the nineteenth century, the area that now comprises the Theater District was owned by a handful of families and comprised a few farms. In 1836, Mayor Cornelius Lawrence opened 42nd Street and invited Manhattanites to "enjoy the pure clean air." Close to 60 years later, theatrical entrepreneur Oscar Hammerstein I built the iconic Victoria Theater on West 42nd Street. Broadway's first "long-run" musical
23320-476: The biggest changes to the commercial theatrical landscape—on both sides of the Atlantic—over the past decade or so is that sightings of big star names turning out to do plays has [sic] gone up; but the runs they are prepared to commit to has gone down. Time was that a producer would require a minimum commitment from his star of six months, and perhaps a year; now, the 13-week run is the norm." The minimum size of
23540-550: The bill was not passed. The Save the Theatres campaign then turned their efforts to supporting the establishment of the Theater District as a registered historic district . In December 1983, Save the Theatres prepared "The Broadway Theater District, a Preservation Development and Management Plan", and demanded that each theater in the district receive landmark designation. Mayor Ed Koch ultimately reacted by creating
23760-450: The building's corners, while Bunshaft wanted to use one column; in addition, both architects sought to create the building's technical drawings. In the end, the architects used Bunshaft's column arrangement and Saarinen created the technical drawings. The architects considered and rejected 15 plans for the theater; one such plan envisioned the Beaumont Theater with a concave roof in the center, supported by piers on either side. The final scheme
23980-519: The children in the care of family friends for a year. The children were reunited with their parents in March 1906 and stayed at the Arizona ranch during that summer. The Calder family moved from Arizona to Pasadena, California . The windowed cellar of the family home became Calder's first studio and he received his first set of tools. He used scraps of copper wire to make jewelry for his sister's dolls. On January 1, 1907, Nanette Calder took her son to
24200-651: The circus was presented on both sides of the Atlantic. Soon, his Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture , or "drawing in space", and in 1929 had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! , in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art , is an early example of
24420-678: The class of 1915. Alexander Calder's parents did not want him to be an artist, so he decided to study mechanical engineering. An intuitive engineer since childhood, Calder did not even know what mechanical engineering was. "I was not very sure what this term meant, but I thought I'd better adopt it," he later wrote. He enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey , in 1915. When asked why he decided to study mechanical engineering instead of art Calder said, "I wanted to be an engineer because some guy I rather liked
24640-537: The construction of the repertory theater at Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center's board of directors then pledged to name the theater after Allen, and Rockefeller named Robert Whitehead as the consultant on the repertory theater. Wallace Harrison , the architect of the Philharmonic Hall, had declined an offer to design the other buildings in the complex but helped select the other architects. Various prominent architects and engineers were invited as consultants for
24860-422: The decade ended with critics and audiences giving mixed signals." Ken Bloom observed that "The 1960s and 1970s saw a worsening of the area [Times Square] and a drop in the number of legitimate shows produced on Broadway." By way of comparison, in the 1950 to 1951 season (May to May) 94 productions opened on Broadway; in the 1969 to 1970 season (June to May) there were 59 productions (fifteen were revivals). In
25080-688: The design of the interior. It is part of Lincoln Center , a performing arts complex on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City . The Beaumont is in the same building as the New York Public Library (NYPL)'s Performing Arts Library , designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Various contractors were also involved in the Beaumont's construction, including general contractor Turner Construction , acoustical engineer Bolt Beranek & Newman , structural engineer Ammann & Whitney and mechanical engineer Syska Hennessy . The library–theater building
25300-414: The development, but Lincoln Center Inc. recommended that only American architects be selected for the final designs. The repertory theater and library were the last two buildings at Lincoln Center for which architects were selected. In November 1958, Eero Saarinen was selected as the architect for the Beaumont Theater, while Gordon Bunshaft was picked to design the performing-arts library. Even though Saarinen
25520-423: The duck is kinetic because it rocks when gently tapped. In Croton, during his high school years, Calder was befriended by his father's painter friend Everett Shinn with whom he built a gravity-powered system of mechanical trains. Calder described it, "We ran the train on wooden rails held by spikes; a chunk of iron racing down the incline speeded the cars. We even lit up some cars with candle lights". After Croton,
25740-420: The earliest manifestations of an art that consciously departed from the traditional notion of the art work as a static object and integrated the ideas of gesture and immateriality as aesthetic factors. Dating from 1931, Calder's abstract sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened "mobiles" by Marcel Duchamp , a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive". However, Calder found that
25960-679: The effort. At Papp's behest, in July 1982, a bill was introduced in the 97th Congress , entitled "H.R.6885, A bill to designate the Broadway/Times Square Theatre District in the City of New York as a national historic site". The legislation would have provided certain U.S. government resources and assistance to help the city preserve the district. Faced with strong opposition and lobbying by Mayor Ed Koch's Administration and corporate Manhattan development interests,
26180-565: The end of the year, Woody Allen , Sarah Caldwell , Liviu Ciulei , Robin Phillips , and Ellis Rabb were appointed as the theater's new directors, and Edward Albee was hired as the in-house playwright. The Beaumont's directors leased the theater from Lincoln Center. The following May, the theater signed new contracts with Actors' Equity Association and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees that allowed
26400-434: The ends of the aisles. Typical theaters had lights embedded within the risers of the stairs in each aisle, but the theater's semicircular arrangement meant that such lights could be distracting to patrons on the opposite side of the auditorium. There are seven removable panels placed across the proscenium opening. When all the panels are removed, the proscenium is 58 ft (18 m) wide; the panels can also be used to seal
26620-512: The entire Broadway production is transplanted almost entirely intact and may run for many months (or years) at each stop. For example, the first U.S. tour of The Phantom of the Opera required 26 53-foot-long (16.1 m) semi-trailers to transport all its sets, equipment, and costumes, and it took almost 10 days to properly unload all those trucks and install everything into a theater. Alexander Calder Alexander "Sandy" Calder ( / ˈ k ɔː l d ər / ; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976)
26840-456: The everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward from vaudeville and burlesque, towards a more literate form. They starred high-quality professional singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal , and Fay Templeton ), instead of the amateurs, often sex workers, who had starred in earlier musical forms. As transportation improved, poverty in New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night,
27060-467: The first musicals to resume performances on September 2, 2021. The 74th Tony Awards were also postponed; the Tony nominations were announced on October 15, 2020, and took place on September 26, 2021. On July 30, 2021, it was announced that all Broadway theaters required attendees to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination . The rule applied to guests ages 12+. Those under age 12 were required to provide
27280-429: The first step in the production of a monumental sculpture, was considered by Calder a sculpture in its own right. Larger works used the classic enlargement techniques of traditional sculptors, including his father and grandfather. Drawing his designs on craft paper, he enlarged them using a grid. His large-scale works were created according to his exact specifications, while also allowing him the liberty to adjust or correct
27500-476: The form I had in mind." Afterward, the Beaumont produced Galileo in April 1967. Galileo was the first play by an American playwright at the Beaumont, placating critics who objected to the number of plays by foreign authors. Next, Alexander H. Cohen leased the theater for the opening of The Unknown Soldier and His Wife that July. The repertory program was still not successful; The New York Times reported in late 1967 that Lincoln Center's "inability to build
27720-454: The front of the apron. The unconventional mixture of stage designs prompted many designers and directors to avoid the theater entirely. Beneath the stage is a turntable measuring 46 ft (14 m) across, which allows the thrust stage to be expanded. When the thrust stage was used, the first seven rows of the orchestra could be lowered into the basement. The turntable carries a semicircular floor panel with rows of orchestra seating (for when
27940-493: The help of his son-in-law, Jean Davidson. Calder died unexpectedly in November 1976 of a heart attack , shortly after the opening of a major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum in New York. In Paris in 1926, Calder began to create his Cirque Calder , a miniature circus fashioned from wire, cloth, string, rubber, cork, and other found objects. Designed to be transportable (it grew to fill five large suitcases),
28160-515: The last structures designed by modernist architect Eero Saarinen . The theater shares a building with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and contains two off-Broadway venues, the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and the Claire Tow Theater. The Beaumont occupies the southern and western sides of its building's first and second floors, while the library wraps above and on top of it. The main facade faces Lincoln Center's plaza and
28380-564: The library–theater building, but none of the state's funding would go toward the library–theater. The design details were nearly finished when the New York City Council voted that March to withhold its funding for Lincoln Center. This move might have forced a redesign of the theater and library. However, the Rockefeller family (including state governor Nelson Rockefeller ) agreed to cover the city's $ 12 million commitment so
28600-474: The lobby floors and walnut for the theater's sloping walls. The bar features Overture , a 2012 sculpture by Kiki Smith . The Lincoln Square Renewal Project had been proposed in 1955 as part of urban planner Robert Moses 's urban renewal program. The Lincoln Center performing-arts complex became a key part of the urban renewal, though it was not part of Moses's initial intentions for the site. John D. Rockefeller III led Lincoln Center's development, which from
28820-574: The lobby to both levels of seating. Below the orchestra, another flight of stairs leads down to the Newhouse Theater. An elevator also connected all the stories. The Beaumont uses steeply sloped stadium seating . Unlike other Broadway theaters, the stage could be configured as a traditional proscenium stage or extended with a thrust stage of varying length. Backstage, there is 10,000 sq ft (930 m) for set storage. The stage and its backstage facilities take up about 75 percent of
29040-557: The middle-class, variety shows in concert saloons for men of the working class and the slumming middle-class." The plays of William Shakespeare were frequently performed on the Broadway stage during the period, most notably by American actor Edwin Booth who was internationally known for his performance as Hamlet . Booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865 (with
29260-731: The mobile also marked an abandonment of Modernism's larger goal of a rapprochement with science and engineering, and with unfortunate long-term implications for contemporary art. In 1934, Calder made his first outdoor works in his Roxbury, Connecticut studio, using the same techniques and materials as his smaller works. Exhibited outside, Calder's initial standing mobiles moved elegantly in the breeze, bobbing and swirling in natural, spontaneous rhythms. The first few outdoor works were too delicate for strong winds, which forced Calder to rethink his fabrication process. By 1936 he changed his working methods and began to create smaller-scale maquettes that he then enlarged to monumental size. The small maquette,
29480-423: The motorized works sometimes became monotonous in their prescribed movements. His solution, arrived at by 1932, was hanging sculptures that derived their motion from touch or air currents. The earliest of these were made of wire, found objects, and wood, a material that Calder used since the 1920s. The hanging mobiles were followed in 1934 by outdoor standing mobiles in industrial materials, which were set in motion by
29700-452: The musical Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass . This was followed in 1997 by another revival of The Little Foxes as well as Ivanov . The next year, the theater hosted Eugene O'Neill 's comedy Ah, Wilderness! ; a revival of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night ; and a short-lived musical version of Parade . The last productions of the decade were the revue It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues and
29920-424: The musical La Tragedie de Carmen for the theater, because he had wanted the sole rights to book shows there. In August 1983, Lincoln Center's directors voted to prohibit the Beaumont's board from using either the "Lincoln Center Theater Company" name or $ 500,000 in annual funds. The Beaumont reopened that November with La Tragedie de Carmen . At the end of Carmen 's run, Lincoln Center's restrictions against
30140-689: The musical Marie Christine in 1999. In addition to these Broadway shows, Spalding Gray returned for two monologues: It's a Slippery Slope in 1996 and Morning, Noon and Night in 1999. Further modifications to the Beaumont were proposed in the early 2000s, when Lincoln Center planned to renovate the Beaumont's and Newhouse's lobbies for $ 58 million as part of a larger renovation of the complex. Susan Stroman 's musical Contact opened in 2000 and ran for 1,010 performances. The Beaumont continued to host special productions, including concert series and one-time concerts. Two specials ran during Contact 's engagement: Patti LuPone 's concert series Matters of
30360-514: The new Director and Executive Producer. The Beaumont became much more successful and was renovated in 1996. The theater has hosted several popular productions since the late 1980s, including Anything Goes , Contact , The Light in the Piazza , South Pacific , The King and I , and My Fair Lady . The Vivian Beaumont Theater was designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen , with Broadway scenic designer Jo Mielziner overseeing
30580-420: The next sixteen years. However, smaller vaudeville and variety houses proliferated, and Off-Broadway was well established by the end of the nineteenth century. A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans in a Broadway theatre (inspired largely by the routines of the minstrel shows ), followed by the ragtime -tinged Clorindy: The Origin of
30800-557: The number of potential patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. As in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women. Gilbert and Sullivan 's family-friendly comic opera hits, beginning with H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878, were imported to New York (by
31020-488: The number of visitors. Calder was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. His mobile, International Mobile was the centerpiece of the exhibition. Calder also participated in documentas I (1955), II (1959), III (1964). Major retrospectives of his work were held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1964),
31240-632: The numbered cross streets, extending from the Nederlander Theatre one block south of Times Square on West 41st Street, north along either side of Broadway to 53rd Street , and Vivian Beaumont Theater , at Lincoln Center on West 65th Street. While exceptions exist, the term "Broadway theatre" is used predominantly to describe venues with seating capacities of at least 500 people. Smaller theaters in New York City are referred to as off-Broadway , regardless of location, while very small venues with fewer than 100 seats are called off-off-Broadway ,
31460-455: The open air. The wind mobiles featured abstract shapes delicately balanced on pivoting rods that moved with the slightest current of air, allowing for a natural shifting play of forms and spatial relationships. Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles. At Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937),
31680-459: The opening of her New York gallery, The Art of This Century , to demonstrate her equal loyalty to Surrealist and abstract art, examples of which she displayed in separate galleries. Others who were presented with Calder's pieces were the artist's close friend, Georgia O'Keeffe ; Teeny Duchamp , wife of Marcel Duchamp ; Jeanne Rucar, wife of the filmmaker Luis Buñuel ; and Bella Rosenfeld , wife of Marc Chagall . Calder's first solo exhibition
31900-564: The orchestra. Pedestrians enter through the main plaza facing David Geffen Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House. The plaza-level lobby is midway between the orchestra and balcony levels of the primary auditorium. The plaza-level lobby is plain in design and was originally decorated in travertine and bronze, with white wall panels and red carpets. Rather than a traditional coat room , the theater had lockers along its public corridors. Broad, curving double staircases lead to from
32120-556: The performers, or temporary availability of a theatre between the end of one production and the beginning of another. However, some shows with planned limited engagement runs may, after critical acclaim or box office success, extend their engagements or convert to open-ended runs. This was the case with 2007's August: Osage County , 2009's God of Carnage , 2012's Newsies , and 2022's Take Me Out . Historically, musicals on Broadway tend to have longer runs than "straight" (i.e., non-musical) plays. On January 9, 2006, The Phantom of
32340-399: The play The Rivals . A new entrance was added from 65th Street to the Beaumont Theater's plaza level as part of a mid-2000s renovation. The musical The Light in the Piazza opened at the Beaumont in April 2005, followed by Stoppard's three-part play The Coast of Utopia in 2006 and a revival of Shakespeare's Cymbeline in 2007. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific
32560-468: The plays of George Bernard Shaw , and Katharine Cornell in such plays as Romeo and Juliet , Antony and Cleopatra , and Candida . In 1930, Theatre Guild 's production of Roar, China! was Broadway's first play with a majority Asian cast. As World War II approached, a dozen Broadway dramas addressed the rise of Nazism in Europe and the issue of American non-intervention. The most successful
32780-435: The postal service at the time. His 1946 show at Carré, which was organized by Duchamp, was composed mainly of hanging and standing mobiles, and it made a huge impact, as did the essay for the catalogue by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre . In 1951, Calder devised a new kind of sculpture, related structurally to his constellations. These "towers", affixed to the wall with a nail, consist of wire struts and beams that jut from
33000-410: The previous season, these plays generally had only lukewarm reception. Papp announced in early 1975 that he would change the Beaumont's programming to revivals of traditional plays and dramas with established performers, citing "hostility" from the audiences. The previous season had only 22,000 subscribers, compared with 27,000 during the 1973–1974 season. He also wanted to raise $ 3–4 million to renovate
33220-423: The production plays), meaning that the length of their presentation is not set beforehand, but depends on critical response, word of mouth, and the effectiveness of the show's advertising, all of which determine ticket sales. Investing in a commercial production carries a varied degree of financial risk. Shows need not make a profit immediately; should they make their "nut" (weekly operating expenses), or lose money at
33440-645: The productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein , became enormously influential forms of American popular culture " and contributed to making New York City the cultural capital of the world . New York City's first significant theatre was established in the mid-18th century, around 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan , which held about 280 people. They presented William Shakespeare 's plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera . In 1752, William Hallam sent
33660-446: The proscenium completely. The two outermost panels must be manually removed, while the other five panels can be lifted mechanically using a counterweight system. Because of the presence of the removable panels, the stage curtain is placed in front of the proscenium opening, contrary to in most theaters. The stage curtain is mounted on a curving steel frame, which runs parallel to the 14 ft-deep (4.3 m) stage apron. The entire stage
33880-709: The realm of pure abstraction in the early 1930s, so did his prints. The thin lines used to define figures in the earlier prints and drawings began delineating groups of geometric shapes, often in motion. Calder also used prints for advocacy, as in poster prints from 1967 and 1969 protesting the Vietnam War . As Calder's professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings were marketed, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available. One of Calder's more unusual undertakings
34100-463: The renovations of the Beaumont and State (now Koch) theaters. Frederick R. Koch had pledged $ 1 million to match the Fox/Samuels grant, and another board member of the Lincoln Center Theater had pledged $ 500,000. Acoustics expert Cyril Harris and architect I. M. Pei were hired to renovate the Beaumont. In addition to changes to the stage and proscenium opening, the theater would be rebuilt with
34320-467: The renovations. After Irving testified against the plans the next month, the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater was given the chance to submit an alternate plan for the theater. The theatre company proposed selling 500 annual subscriptions of $ 1,000 to cover the remaining debt. City Center formally withdrew its plan in December 1971, citing the opposition. Throughout the dispute over the planned renovation,
34540-536: The repertory company's members. The Beaumont opened to the public on October 12, 1965, with previews of Danton's Death . The Beaumont was dedicated on October 14 and hosted a fundraising gala on October 20, which raised more than $ 100,000. The theater officially opened on October 21, when regular performances of Danton's Death began. The Beaumont's opening was not as widely reported in the media as some of Lincoln Center's other buildings, but it did receive mostly positive commentary. Progressive Architecture wrote that
34760-510: The repertory theater and the library were to be separate buildings. Allen expressed concerns that the site allotted to the repertory theater was too small, in part because Robert Moses was intractable in his refusal to reduce the size of the nearby Damrosch Park . After the New York Public Library (NYPL) joined the project in June 1959, the library building and repertory theater were combined by that October, saving both money and space. Saarinen and Bunshaft had decided that "one building could house
34980-531: The run ending just a few months before Booth's brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln ), and would later revive the role at his own Booth's Theatre (which was managed for a time by his brother Junius Brutus Booth Jr. ). Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving , Tommaso Salvini , Fanny Davenport , and Charles Fechter . Theatre in New York moved from Downtown gradually to Midtown Manhattan , beginning around 1850, seeking less expensive real estate. At
35200-467: The same width as the Beaumont's base. The theater is accessed by elevators within the NYPL section of the building. In addition to the auditorium, the Claire Tow houses rehearsal space, dressing quarters, offices, and a pocket lobby with a bar. The structure is wrapped inside a grille of aluminum louvers that help screen out the sun. Hardy used simple materials for the interior, including stained oak for
35420-450: The same year by another engagement of Gray's Anatomy . The theater hosted Tom Stoppard 's play Arcadia and David Hare 's play Racing Demon in 1995. Following complaints over poor acoustics, System for Improved Acoustic Performance installed 88 speakers and some microphones after Arcadia closed. By the mid-1990s, the Beaumont was finally running a surplus. LCT had a $ 25 million annual budget and had sold all 41,000 subscriptions to
35640-548: The season were revivals of The Country Wife in December 1965, The Condemned of Altona in January 1966, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle in March 1966. While the first season had high grosses, there was much criticism of the plays themselves. Richard P. Cooke of The Wall Street Journal said the Lincoln Center Repertory Company "is still struggling for popular and critical acclaim", despite having both ample funding and up-to-date equipment at
35860-425: The season, interrupted by a short run of The Miser that May. The Beaumont's fifth season in 1969–1970 featured four American plays: The Time of Your Life , Camino Real , Operation Sidewinder , and Beggar on Horseback . Montgomery resigned in April 1970, a year after his appointment. The sixth season in 1970–1971 was composed entirely of revivals and included The Good Woman of Setzuan , The Playboy of
36080-473: The season. This is done in order to maximize access to their target audience. Most Broadway producers and theatre owners are members of The Broadway League (formerly "The League of American Theatres and Producers"), a trade organization that promotes Broadway theatre as a whole, negotiates contracts with the various theatrical unions and agreements with the guilds, and co-administers the Tony Awards with
36300-470: The stage for 657 performances. Chinatown itself was surpassed by the musical Irene (1919) in 1921 as the longest-running Broadway musical, and even earlier, in March 1920, by Lightnin' (1918) as the longest-running Broadway show. In 1896, theatre owners Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger formed the Theatrical Syndicate , which controlled almost every legitimate theatre in the U.S. for
36520-656: The start included venues for the New York Philharmonic , Metropolitan Opera , and New York City Ballet . The first plans for the complex, announced in May 1956, included plans for five commercial theaters. Lincoln Center Inc. was founded in June 1956 to oversee the development, and the company acquired the land in February 1958. Vivian Beaumont Allen , a former actress and heiress to the May Department Stores fortune, donated $ 3 million in May 1958 for
36740-698: The steel base of Spirale in France, a monumental mobile for the UNESCO site in Paris, while the top was fabricated in Connecticut. In June 1969, Calder attended the dedication of his monumental "stabile" sculpture La Grande Vitesse in Grand Rapids, Michigan . This sculpture is notable for being the first civic sculpture in the United States to receive funding from the National Endowment for
36960-474: The theater closed after the 1980–1981 season, which put him in conflict with Lincoln Center chairman Martin E. Segal . Crinkley wanted to convert the Beaumont into a proscenium theater, resolving not only poor sightlines but also inferior acoustics that required some of the more recent plays to use amplification. In May 1981, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation granted Lincoln Center $ 4 million each for
37180-408: The theater could be completed by the 1964 New York World's Fair . Following Saarinen's sudden death on September 1, 1961, his firm continued to work on the theater's development. The next month, excavation started on the library–theater building's site. That November, Saarinen's firm announced final plans for the repertory theater. Site excavation was more than half finished, and the repertory theater
37400-422: The theater for 509 performances in 2018. A single performance the musical Camelot took place at a benefit concert in March 2019, and Robert Schenkkan 's comedy The Great Society had a limited run in late 2019. Broadway theatre Broadway theatre , or Broadway , is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters , each with 500 or more seats, in
37620-433: The theater in the late 1980s, spending $ 25,000 on handrails and having productions use the thrust stage. The next production, a revision of Cole Porter 's musical Anything Goes , opened in October 1987 and ran for 804 performances over the next two years. LCT's 1988–1989 season was hosted at the Lyceum Theatre as a result of the extended run of Anything Goes . LCT also planned to raise $ 900,000 for further improvements to
37840-455: The theater is configured as a proscenium stage), as well as another semicircular panel with the thrust stage and three rows of seating. Whenever the stage is reconfigured, the lifts beneath the front orchestra rows and the thrust stage are lowered. The semicircular floor panels are then unlocked from the lift and connected to each other before being rotated, disconnected, and raised. A second platform, measuring 5 ft (1.5 m) wide, surrounds
38060-448: The theater was "one of the most innovational theater facilities in this country". John Chapman of the New York Daily News called the Beaumont's opening "the most important theatrical event of the 1965–66 season in this city", despite the mediocrity of Danton's Death . Wolf Von Eckardt wrote for The Washington Post that the Beaumont had a "classic" architectural appearance "without sweat or striving". The New York Concrete Board gave
38280-400: The theater would open that June. The next month, a revival of Georg Büchner 's play Danton's Death was booked as the Beaumont's inaugural production, and the opening date was pushed to October 21. The library–theater building ultimately cost $ 17 million, partly funded by $ 3 million from Allen and $ 7.5 million from the NYPL. Allen's philanthropic foundation also gave $ 2.1 million for training
38500-427: The theater's area. The Broadway League cites the main auditorium as having 1,080 seats, while Playbill gives a figure of 1,069 seats. The main auditorium originally had approximately 1,100 seats, with about 770 in the orchestra level and 330 in the balcony level. The actual capacity depended on the configuration of the stage. Thirty seats at the front of the orchestra can be stored in the basement when thrust stage
38720-425: The theater's directors had not raised enough money to cover the rest of the renovation, which had increased to $ 8 million. By then, Harris was no longer affiliated with the renovation. Conflicts over the Beaumont's operation persisted through 1983. Lincoln Center's board prioritized reopening the Beaumont for shows, while the theater's directors wanted to renovate the auditorium first. Lincoln Center had requested that
38940-416: The theater's early years. The 299-seat Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater is in the basement and the 112-seat Claire Tow Theater is on the roof. Allen donated $ 3 million for the theater's construction in 1958 but died before its completion. The Beaumont opened on October 21, 1965, and was originally operated by Jules Irving and Herbert Blau of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, generally presenting four shows
39160-533: The theater, with 12,000 people on a waiting list. In December 1995, LCT announced it would close the Beaumont for an extensive renovation lasting six to eight months, relocating Broadway shows to the Plymouth Theatre . The project was originally estimated to cost $ 4.7 million. The renovation, led by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates , involved modifying mechanical systems, improving acoustics, and adding accessible restrooms and seating areas. The work ultimately cost $ 6.2 million. The Beaumont reopened in November 1996 with
39380-416: The theatres. Since colored bulbs burned out too quickly, white lights were used, and Broadway was nicknamed "The Great White Way". In August 1919, the Actors' Equity Association demanded a standard contract for all professional productions. After a strike shut down all the theatres, the producers were forced to agree. By the 1920s, the Shubert Brothers had risen to take over the majority of the theatres from
39600-419: The theatrical producer and director who established The Public Theater , led the "Save the Theatres" campaign. It was a not-for-profit group supported by the Actors Equity union to save the theater buildings in the neighborhood from demolition by monied Manhattan development interests. Papp provided resources, recruited a publicist and celebrated actors, and provided audio, lighting, and technical crews for
39820-472: The third floor, with the library running around it in a "doughnut" shape. Another entrance to the library, facing west toward Amsterdam Avenue , is below the theater. The attic houses the library's stacks . SOM and Saarinen collaborated on the design of the exteriors. The main facade , along Lincoln Center's plaza, is two stories high and made of glass and steel. The facade consists of a glass curtain wall and two recessed square concrete columns, which create
40040-461: The time, the average age of theatergoers was 40.4; nearly two-thirds of the audience were women; and 29% identified as a racial minority. The classification of theatres is governed by language in Actors' Equity Association contracts. To be eligible for a Tony, a production must be in a house with 500 seats or more and in the Theater District, which are the criteria that define Broadway theatre. Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows often provide
40260-458: The turntable and can move independently. In the lower level of the building is the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater , originally known as the Forum when it opened on November 10, 1967. The theater was renamed in 1972 for Mrs. Samuel I. Newhouse , a prominent patron of the theater. Designed by Saarinen and Mielziner, the Newhouse is a 299-seat venue in which Lincoln Center Theater presents its off-Broadway plays and musicals. The Newhouse Theater originally
40480-492: The twenties, there were 70–80 theaters, but by 1969, there were 36 left. During this time, many Broadway productions struggled due to low attendance rates, which resulted in perceived mediocrity among such plays. For this reason, the Theatre Development Fund was created with the purpose of assisting productions with high cultural value that likely would struggle without subsidization, by offering tickets to those plays to consumers at reduced prices. In early 1982, Joe Papp ,
40700-449: The two facilities better than two". During late 1959, Elia Kazan was also hired as a consultant for the repertory theater, helping Whitehead select the productions. Whitehead and Kazan established the nonprofit Lincoln Center Repertory Company in February 1960 to oversee the Beaumont's programming. Only two conflicts between Saarinen and Bunshaft arose during the three-year planning process. Saarinen wanted to use three columns at each of
40920-449: The unveiling of the sculptures. Originally meant to be constructed in 1977 for the Hart Senate Office Building, Mountains and Clouds was not built until 1985 due to government budget cuts. The massive sheet-metal project, weighing 35 tons, spans the nine-story height of the building's atrium in Washington, D.C. Calder designed the maquette for the United States Senate in the last year of his life. Calder created stage sets for more than
41140-502: The vein of Victor Herbert. Live theatre has survived the invention of cinema. Leaving these comparatively frivolous entertainments behind and taking the drama a step forward, Show Boat premiered on December 27, 1927, at the Ziegfeld Theatre . It represented a complete integration of book and score, with dramatic themes, as told through the music, dialogue, setting, and movement, woven together more seamlessly than in previous musicals. It ran for 572 performances. The 1920s also spawned
41360-481: The wall, with moving objects suspended from their armatures. While not denying Calder's power as a sculptor, an alternate view of the history of twentieth-century art cites Calder's turning away in the early 1930s from his motor-powered works in favor of the wind-driven mobile as marking a decisive moment in Modernism's abandonment of its earlier commitment to the machine as a critical and potentially expressive new element in human affairs. According to this viewpoint,
41580-627: The war's end, theatre resumed in 1798, when the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street on present-day Park Row . A second major theatre, Bowery Theatre , opened in 1826, followed by others. By the 1840s, P.T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in Lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblo's Garden opened and soon became one of New York's premier nightspots. The 3,000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmo's Opera House opened and presented opera for only four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as
41800-522: Was El Sol Rojo , constructed outside the Estadio Azteca for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City . Many of his public art works were commissioned by renowned architects; for example, I.M. Pei commissioned La Grande Voile , a 25-ton, 40-foot high (12 m) stabile sculpture for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966. Most of Calder's monumental stationary and mobile sculptures were made after 1962 at Etablissements Biémont in Tours , France. He would create
42020-401: Was Lillian Hellman 's Watch on the Rhine , which opened in April 1941. After the lean years of the Great Depression , Broadway theatre had entered a golden age with the blockbuster hit Oklahoma! , in 1943, which ran for 2,212 performances. According to John Kenrick 's writings on Broadway musicals, "Every season saw new stage musicals send songs to the top of the charts. Public demand,
42240-539: Was 14.77 million in 2018–2019, compared to 13.79 million in 2017–2018. The average age of the Broadway audience in the 2017–18 theater season was 40, the lowest it had been in nearly two decades. By 2018, about 20% of Broadway tickets were sold to international visitors, although many visitors reported not being able to use their tickets. In 2022–2023, the first full season since the COVID-19 pandemic, Broadway theaters sold 12.3 million tickets, of which 35% were to local residents and 17% to international visitors. At
42460-411: Was Jewish and of German descent and his father was Calvinist and of Scottish descent, but Calder never practiced a religion and rejected nationalism. Calder's grandfather, sculptor Alexander Milne Calder , was born in Scotland, had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1868, and is best known for the colossal statue of William Penn on Philadelphia City Hall 's tower. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder ,
42680-531: Was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857. In 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square , and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square . Theatres arrived in the Times Square area in the early 1900s, and the Broadway theatres consolidated there after a large number were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" The Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with
42900-403: Was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8 -62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas". George Stanley Gordon , founder of the New York City advertising agency Gordon and Shortt, approached Calder with the idea of painting a jet in 1972, but Calder responded that he did not paint toys. When Gordon told him it was a real, full-sized airliner he
43120-425: Was a mechanical engineer, that's all". At Stevens, Calder was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and excelled in mathematics. He was well-liked and the class yearbook contained the following description, "Sandy is evidently always happy, or perhaps up to some joke, for his face is always wrapped up in that same mischievous, juvenile grin. This is certainly the index to the man's character in this case, for he
43340-472: Was a well-known sculptor who created many public installations, a majority of them in Philadelphia. Calder's mother was a professional portrait artist , who had studied at the Académie Julian and the Sorbonne in Paris from around 1888 until 1893. She moved to Philadelphia, where she met Stirling Calder while studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts . Calder's parents married on February 22, 1895. Alexander Calder's sister, Margaret Calder Hayes,
43560-450: Was accessible only through the Beaumont's parking garage. Unlike the larger Broadway theater above, the Newhouse only contains a thrust stage. Its existence came about because, during planning, Lincoln Center's board could not agree on what types of productions the Forum should present. In June 2012, LCT opened the Claire Tow Theater on the Beaumont's roof, which features work by emerging playwrights, directors, and designers. The auditorium
43780-404: Was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." Alexander "Sandy" Calder
44000-420: Was appointed as the Beaumont's executive producer that June. Unlike his predecessors, Mosher believed the Beaumont could operate viably without being renovated. The Beaumont's leadership hosted a party at the theater in December 1985 to celebrate its upcoming reopening. The Flying Karamazov Brothers performed a live show at the Beaumont in April 1986, the first at the main auditorium under the new leadership. It
44220-409: Was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania . His birthdate remains a source of confusion. According to Calder's mother, Nanette (née Lederer), Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. When Calder's family learned of the birth certificate, they asserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake. His mother
44440-408: Was bought for $ 18.5 million in 2012. Calder's 7.5-foot-long hanging mobile Poisson volant (Flying Fish) (1957) fetched $ 25.9 million, setting an auction record for the sculptor at Christie's New York in 2014. Beginning in 1966, winners of the National Magazine Awards are awarded an "Ellie", a copper-colored stabile resembling an elephant, which was designed by Calder. Two months after his death,
44660-653: Was commissioned but went uncompleted following his death. In 1975 Calder was commissioned to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL automobile, which would be the first vehicle in the BMW Art Car Project. Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many as gifts for friends. Several pieces reflect his fascination with art from Africa and other continents. They were mostly made of brass and steel, with bits of ceramic, wood and glass. Calder rarely used solder; when he needed to join strips of metal, he linked them with loops, bound them with snippets of wire or fashioned rivets. Calder created his first pieces in 1906 at
44880-417: Was designed to screen the library and its performing-arts museum behind it. The top of the roof originally had an exposed-aggregate finish, but this was subsequently covered with stone pavement. On the underside of the roof are coffers containing recessed downlights as well as fluorescent uplights. Similar lighting fixtures are used in the theater's lobby as well as throughout the library's interior. The roof
45100-424: Was despite the fact that Papp had been able to reach 97 percent of audience capacity for many shows. The theater stayed closed even though there was an ongoing shortage of available theaters for new productions. Lincoln Center's directors said the Beaumont's operating expenses were twice as high as traditional Broadway theaters; it cost $ 1.55 million to mount a typical production at the Beaumont, compared to $ 930,000 at
45320-408: Was far larger than any other Broadway theater's stage at the time; the next largest stage covered 2,914 sq ft (270.7 m). The Beaumont's thrust stage , when fully extended, is 28 ft (8.5 m) deep and 25 ft (7.6 m) wide and is placed on a lift that can descend to the basement. Lincoln Center's drama consultant Robert Whitehead had wanted the thrust stage, saying: "There
45540-569: Was followed the same month by a revival of John Guare 's play The House of Blue Leaves , which transferred upstairs from the Newhouse. The 1986–1987 season was the first full season since 1980–1981. The season's offerings consisted of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur 's comedy The Front Page ; Wole Soyinka 's drama Death and the King's Horseman ; Bill Irwin 's mime show The Regard of Flight and The Clown Bagatelles ; and Robert Woodruff and The Flying Karamazov Brothers' version of The Comedy of Errors . LCT made relatively minor changes to
45760-430: Was held in 1915. During Calder's high school years (1912–1915), the family moved back and forth between New York and California. In each new location, Calder's parents reserved cellar space as a studio for their son. Near the end of this period, Calder stayed with friends in California while his parents moved back to New York, so that he could graduate from Lowell High School in San Francisco . Calder graduated with
45980-459: Was illuminated with 565 spotlights, hung from four semicircular catwalks and hidden behind "fins" on the ceiling. The Beaumont was the first Broadway theater with an electronic lighting system because, as Mielziner said, "Economically, we can't afford to use old switchboards and old methods". Speakers were installed during the mid-1990s because, as designed, the auditorium had poor acoustics. The stage covers 11,000 sq ft (1,000 m). This
46200-411: Was in 1927 at the Gallery of Jacques Seligmann in Paris. His first solo show in a US commercial gallery was in 1928 at the Weyhe Gallery in New York City. He exhibited with the Abstraction-Création group in Paris in 1933. In 1935, he had his first solo museum exhibition in the United States at The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago . In New York, he was championed from the early 1930s by
46420-445: Was installed on Bunker Hill, Los Angeles to serve as "a distinctive landmark". The plaza site was designed in tiers to maximize the sculpture's visual effects. In 1974, Calder unveiled two sculptures, Flamingo at Federal Plaza and Universe at Sears Tower , in Chicago, Illinois, accompanied by the exhibition Alexander Calder: A Retrospective Exhibition, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago which opened simultaneously with
46640-400: Was instrumental in the development of the UC Berkeley Art Museum . Four-year-old Calder posed nude for his father's sculpture The Man Cub , a cast of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In 1902 he also completed his earliest sculpture, a clay elephant. In 1905 his father contracted tuberculosis , and Calder's parents moved to a ranch in Oracle, Arizona , leaving
46860-449: Was not a success, and neither was a revival of Jane Bowles 's In the Summer House in August 1993. Gray returned in November 1993 for his monologue series Gray's Anatomy , shortly before the play Abe Lincoln in Illinois opened; the engagements ran simultaneously. The theatre next produced a recreation of the Royal National Theatre production of Rodgers and Hammerstein 's musical Carousel , which opened in March 1994, followed later
47080-403: Was not as well-connected as some of Lincoln Center's other architects, he was both an experienced auditorium designer and a prominent architect in the middle of his career. Whitehead and Harrison had chosen Saarinen for this reason. Shortly afterward, Jo Mielziner was hired to collaborate on the theater's interior design. The complex's general contractors were selected in January 1959. Originally,
47300-409: Was proposing, the artist immediately gave his approval. Gordon felt that Braniff, known for melding the worlds of fashion and design with the world of aviation, would be the perfect company to carry out the idea. Braniff Chairman Harding Lawrence was highly receptive and a contract was drawn up in 1973 calling for the painting of one Douglas DC-8-62 jet liner, dubbed Flying Colors , and 50 gouaches for
47520-472: Was renamed after Allen at this time. Lincoln Center's directors reported in March 1962 that the Beaumont's completion had been delayed to at least 1964. The delay was caused by the relocation of the repertory group's offices from the Juilliard School building into the library–theater building. Allen never saw her namesake theater completed, as she died in late 1962. The Lincoln Center Repertory Company intended to premiere productions in 1963, regardless of whether
47740-453: Was revived in 2008, running for 1,000 performances. Guare's play A Free Man of Color had a brief run at the Beaumont in 2010. The next year, the play War Horse opened, running for 718 performances. The Claire Tow Theater on the Beaumont's roof was approved in 2010, and the new venue opened in June 2012. Bernard Gersten resigned as the theater's executive producer in 2012. The Beaumont hosted Holland Taylor 's solo show Ann , as well as
47960-525: Was tested in an unused movie theater in Pontiac, Michigan , where Mielziner drew up plans for theatrical sets he had designed in the past. By August 1960, Saarinen and Mielziner had reportedly finalized their plans for the repertory theater and the basement Forum, but they made minor modifications to these plans before the end of the year. In January 1961, the New York state and city governments agreed to fund several buildings in Lincoln Center. The city would provide $ 12 million in total, including $ 8.2 million to
48180-435: Was the third to open at Lincoln Center. Original plans conceived the library and theater as separate buildings, but the structures were combined in the final plan. The theater forms the building's core and occupies the southern and western sides of the building's first and second floors. The library runs along the building's northern and eastern sides, as well as much of the third floor. The theater's stage house protrudes through
48400-458: Was under renovation at the time, would be renamed after actor James Earl Jones . In June 2022, the Nederlanders announced that the Brooks Atkinson Theatre would be renamed after Lena Horne , The James Earl Jones Theatre was rededicated in September 2022, while the Lena Horne Theatre was rededicated that November. Although there are some exceptions, shows with open-ended runs generally have evening performances Tuesday through Saturday, with
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