Lyceum Theatre (Park Avenue South) | |
---|---|
General information | |
Location | Manhattan, New York City |
Opened | 1885 |
Demolished | 1902 |
The Lyceum Theatre was a theatre in New York City located on Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South) between 23rd and 24th Streets in Manhattan. It was built in 1885 and operated until 1902, when it was torn down to make way for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. It was replaced by a new Lyceum Theatre on 45th Street. For all but its first two seasons, the theatre was home to Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theatre Stock Company, which presented many important plays and actors of the day.
The three-story building's auditorium was 75 feet (23 m) deep by 48.5 feet (14.8 m) wide, with a seating capacity of 727: boxes 88, parquet 344, dress circle 172, and balcony 123. Thomas Edison is reported to have personally worked on making it the first theatre lit entirely by electricity (not the first to use electric lights), and Louis Comfort Tiffany designed aspects of the interior. Not all new technologies lasted: for the first season the orchestra rode an "automatic elevator car" into the fly gallery to play in a gallery over the proscenium during performances, but the car was removed in the theatre's second year. Ticket prices initially ranged from $1 to $2.50. [1] [2]
Actor, playwright and theatre technology innovator Steele Mackaye and producer Gustave Frohman built the theatre as the base for the Lyceum School of Acting, to be run by them and Franklin H. Sargent. The school quickly became the New York School of Acting and then, by 1888, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA). [3] [4] Sargent soon left and after six months Mackaye and Frohman were forced to sell their interests to benefit Tiffany and other creditors. [5] Actress Helen Dauvray then became manager, making her one of the first woman theatrical executives in the U.S. Gustave's brother, the impresario Daniel Frohman, took over at the beginning of the theatre's third season and stayed until it was demolished in 1902, when he established the Lyceum Theatre on 45th St. [6]
Daniel Frohman ran the Lyceum Theatre Company, a stock company with a more or less constant troupe of actors performing several different plays each season. Frohman sought to introduce as many new, “modern plays” as possible. The plays reflected both the older melodrama style and the newer naturalistic or realistic style, common to the last decades before the motion picture era. The Lyceum Company also sent productions on the road with full complements of actors, sets, musicians, crew, and publicists. (Prior to this, lead actors tended to tour alone and work with local actors and musicians, with results of varying artistic quality.) [7] [8] From 1886 until 1890, David Belasco worked for the Lyceum Company as stage manager (in today's terms, director or artistic director), [9] co-wrote three of the company's productions with Henry Churchill de Mille, and taught at the acting school. In January 1899, three years before the old Lyceum shut down, Daniel Frohman moved the Lyceum Theatre Company to Daly's Theatre. [10] He and his brother Charles Frohman continued to produce plays at the Lyceum after the stock company moved. [11]
Lyceum productions featured top American and English actors. Many later appeared in silent films. [12] [13]
Among the married couples in the company were:
Over 80 plays were presented at the Lyceum, not counting dozens of benefits, concerts, lectures, amateur and student productions, short-stay touring performances, and revivals of these plays in repertory. (WP=world premiere, AP=American premiere.) [11] [13] [14] [15] [16]
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English playwright and, early in his career, actor.
Charles Frohman was an American theater manager and producer, who discovered and promoted many stars of the American stage. Frohman produced over 700 shows, and among his biggest hits was Peter Pan, both in London and the US.
Thomas William Robertson was an English dramatist and stage director known for his development of naturalism in British theatre.
David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director, and playwright. He was the first writer to adapt the short story Madame Butterfly for the stage. He launched the theatrical career of many actors, including James O'Neill, Mary Pickford, Lenore Ulric, and Barbara Stanwyck. Belasco pioneered many innovative new forms of stage lighting and special effects in order to create realism and naturalism.
Daniel Frohman was an American theatrical producer and manager, and an early film producer.
Edward Hugh Sothern was an American actor who specialized in dashing, romantic leading roles and particularly in Shakespeare roles.
Mary Mannering was an English actress. She studied for the stage under Hermann Vezin. She made her debut at Manchester in 1892 under her own name of Florence Friend.
The Lyceum Theatre is a Broadway theater at 149 West 45th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1903, the Lyceum Theatre is one of the oldest surviving Broadway venues, as well as the oldest continuously operating legitimate theater in New York City. The theater was designed by Herts & Tallant in the Beaux-Arts style and was built for impresario Daniel Frohman. It has 922 seats across three levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. The facade became a New York City designated landmark in 1974, and the lobby and auditorium interiors were similarly designated in 1987.
Annie Ellen Russell was a British-American stage actress.
Blanche Galton Whiffen, known on stage as Mrs. Thomas Whiffen, (1845–1936) was an American actress born in London. She was educated in France; made her stage début at the Royalty Theatre, London, in 1865; came to America in 1868; and toured the United States under John Templeton's management.
Teresa Maxwell-Conover was an American actress in Broadway productions in the early 20th century. She was in motion pictures until the early 1940s, and was sometimes credited as Theresa Maxwell Conover. She was from Louisville, Kentucky.
Elizabeth Tyree was an American actress in Broadway theatrical productions beginning in the mid-1890s. Her married name was Elizabeth Tyree Metcalfe. Professionally she was billed as Bess Tyree.
Trelawny of the "Wells" is an 1898 comic play by Arthur Wing Pinero. It tells the story of a theatre star who attempts to give up the stage for love, but is unable to fit into conventional society.
The Garden Theatre was a major theater on Madison Avenue and 27th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The theatre opened on September 27, 1890, and closed in 1925. Part of the second Madison Square Garden complex, the theatre presented Broadway plays for two decades and then, as high-end theatres moved uptown to the Times Square area, became a facility for German and Yiddish theatre, motion pictures, lectures, and meetings of trade and political groups.
The Madison Square Theatre was a Broadway theatre in Manhattan, on the south side of 24th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. It was built in 1863, operated as a theater from 1865 to 1909, and demolished in 1909 to make way for an office building. The Madison Square Theatre was the scene of important developments in stage technology, theatre design, and theatrical tour management. For about half its history it had other names including the Fifth Avenue Theatre, Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre, Hoyt's Madison Square Theatre, and Hoyt's Theatre.
Our Flat is a farce-comedy by Mrs. H. Musgrave first produced as a matinee performance on June 13, 1889, at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The play made its New York premier on October 21, 1889, at the Lyceum Theatre. In the mid-1890s Our Flat became a successful vehicle for actress Emily Bancker on road tours of North American venues.
The Princess and The Butterfly: or, The Fantastics is a comedy in five acts by Arthur Wing Pinero first produced at London’s St. James's Theatre on 25 March 1897 and in New York at the Lyceum Theatre on 23 November 1897. The New York version of The Princess and the Butterfly was somewhat abbreviated from the four-hour production that originally played in London.
Henry Churchill de Mille was an American dramatist and Georgist, and the father of film pioneers Cecil B. de Mille and William C. de Mille, and the paternal grandfather of the dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille.
The Empire Theatre in New York City was a prominent Broadway theatre in the first half of the twentieth century.
Diplomacy is an 1878 English play which is a translation and adaptation by B. C. Stephenson and Clement Scott of the 1877 French play Dora by Victorien Sardou. It saw frequent revivals and was a popular play for over fifty years.