The Longacre Theater Reconstructed:

A 95-Year-Old Broadway Star Gets a Facelift

Trying to look younger than one's age is a time-honored tradition among Broadway stars past and present, but it's not just the actors that need the occassional touch-up (or, in this case, a full-scale makeover). A venerable Broadway veteran, the Longacre Theater at 220 West 48th Street has recently undergone a $12 million reconstruction, employing a legion of over 400 restorers, carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers and other workers (a crowd dwarfing the cast size of the biggest Broadway musical) to furnish the venue with new ceilings, seats, carpets, lobby, ticket windows, lounges, lighting and even restrooms (the ladies room now boasts fifteen stalls, up from just four). From the plumbing to the air-conditioning to a new $200,000 marquee, what's old is new again at the Longacre.

The theater first opened in 1913, built by producer/manager H.H. Frazee (infamous to New Englanders as the Boston Red Sox owner who sold Babe Ruth's contract to the New York Yankees). The theater was sold to the Schubert Organization in 1919, and is currently one of 17 Broadway theaters owned by that company. The theater borrows it name from the district in which it resides - Times Square was known as Longacre Square before being renamed in 1904 in honor of The New York Times.

Architectural purists and historians can relax - the designers working on the Longacre reconstruction were at pains to preserve as much historical detail as possible, working from vintage photographs to repair and restore the original Beaux-Arts style interior (some of which was lost during a mid-1970s renovation). This is important because, for theater buffs, the building breathes history - for nearly a hundred years, the likes of John Barrymore, Katherine Harris, Jessica Tandy, Clark Gable, Elia Kazan, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Clifford Odets, Julie Harris, Robert Redford, Zero Mostel, John Gielgud, Al Pacino, Diana Rigg, James Earl Jones, Robert DeNiro and Kathleen Turner have tread the boards, among countless others.

Profits from productions at the Longacre are not expected to cover the cost of the renovations, but The Schubert organization's goal has been met - the shows will go on at the Broadway landmark for at least another 95 years.

To read an article about the renovation from the Saturday, May 3rd issue of The New York Times, please click here.

To visit the official website of The Longacre Theater and get information on current and upcoming performances, please click here.