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IN LEAGUE For Two 'New' Theatres
This fall Broadway is regaining one theatre which for decades has been lost to legitimate production, the Ritz on 48th Street, and work commences on the renovation of a second, the New Amsterdam on 42nd Street, a long forgotten birthplace of the lavish Broadway musical. Together they will provide some 2,400 additional seats for theatregoers and, as their owners hope, serve in some sense as replacements for the razed Helen Hayes and Morosco theatres.
The Ritz, a 950-seat theatre for drama and small revues and musicals, opened as a Shubert house in 1921 with Drinkwater's Mary Stuart. In the late 1930s it served as home for the Federal Theatre but was reduced in status to a radio station for CBS from 1943 - 72. In 1972 it reopened to legitimate use but not for long. Its last production, No Sex Please, We're British, closed the Ritz doors in 1973.
Taken over by the expanding Jujamcyn Theatres as its fifth Broadway house, the Ritz is expected to reopen in October after having been virtually rebuilt from the walls in over the summer ― a $1.5 million renovation that puts the theatre literally back in the pink. The seats are brand new, the molded ceiling has been carefully restored, the rich burgundy carpeting is freshly laid, the walls glow a dusty rose. From the heating plant to the air conditioning, the facilities are all new. The Jujamcyn people property call themselves "preservationists."
The Nederlander organization, operating 10 theatres in New York, will begin work shortly after Labor Day to restore the New Amsterdam――a job they expect to take a year. Opened with A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1903 and by 1917 the home of the Ziegfeld Follies, the New Amsterdam since 1937 has been operated exclusively as a second-run movie house. When the Nederlanders raise the curtain of this theatre in the fall of 1983 it will be a splendid musical house of some 1,500 seats.
At the top of its twelve-story office tower, also slated for renovation, is the New Amsterdam Roof. Here, Ziegfeld presented his Midnight Frolics, after-hours entertainments featuring an Eddie Cantor, Maurice Chevalier, or Ruth Etting. The Nederlanders intend to restore the roof theatre as a more intimate 700-seat house.
So, one restored theatre to be welcomed this season, another next season. And more to follow. As a keystone in the redevelopment of once theatre-proud 42nd Street, the New Amsterdam is expected to lead the relighting also of such splendid oldtimers as the Harris, Liberty, and Empire on the south side, and, added to the already lit Apollo, the Selwyn, Times Square, Lyric, and Victory on the north.
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Playbill is pleased to make this space available to The League of New York Theatres and Producers. The opinions reflected herein are those of The League and not necessarily those of Playbill.
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