Imperial Theatre
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The Imperial Theater was The Shubert Organization's fiftieth theater in New York City. Built in 1923 at 249 West Forty-fifth Street, it seats 1,650. It was designed by Herbert J. Krapp as a musical comedy house. Mary Jane McKane was the first production, opening on Christmas night, 1923.
Some notable productions include:
- Cole Porter and Moss Hart's musical Jubilee, featuring two classic Porter songs, "Begin the Beguine" and "Just One of Those Things".
- Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott's Russian ballet spoof On Your Toes, with two George Balanchine ballets.
- John Gielgud played the title role in Hamlet, which ran for 132 performances.
- Kurt Weill, S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash scored 567 performances with One Touch of Venus (1943), with Mary Martin as the classical goddess of Love out of place in the modern world. This was his New York premiere for Weill (most famous as Bertolt Brecht's collaborator), who had fled both Germany and France to escape the Nazis.
- Dreamgirls opened on December 20, 1981 and ran for 1522 performances. This musical featured the song "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", sung by Jennifer Holliday. Holliday's performance of this song stopped the show and became her signature song.
- Ethel Merman ran up an impressive 1,147 performances in Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun.
- Zero Mostel opened in the multi-Tony Award-winning Fiddler on the Roof.
- The muti-Tony Award winning Les Misérables which transferred from the The Broadway Theatre on 17 October 1990 and ran for 6880 performances. It closed on 18 May 2003 and became the Imperial's longest running show at that time.
- Hugh Jackman opened The Boy From Oz in October 2003, in a role that earned him his first Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. The show closed after Jackman ended his contract.
- Currently inhabiting the Imperial Theatre since January 2005, the multi-Tony Award-nominated musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, based off the film of the same name. For his role in this show, Norbert Leo Butz won his first Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.
External links
- [Broadway Theatre Guide]
- [Imperial Theatre] home page
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