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Comedy Theatre (New York City)
The Comedy Theatre was a Broadway theatre located at 110 West 41st Street in Manhattan that opened in 1909. It presented the first Broadway appearances of Katharine Cornell and Ruth Draper, as well as Eugene O'Neill's first Broadway play. Shuttered in the wake of the Depression, it reopened in 1937 as the Mercury Theatre — the venue for Orson Welles's groundbreaking adaptation of Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' and other productions for the Mercury Theatre repertory company. In 1939 it began presenting classic Yiddish theatre. The building was demolished in 1942. History Architect D. G. Malcolm designed the Comedy Theatre, a Broadway theatre located at 110 West 41st Street in Manhattan, for The Shubert Organization. Its first production, ''The Melting Pot'', opened September 6, 1909. The 687-seat theatre was a venue for more intimate productions, and was often leased to producers including William Collier, Cecil B. DeMille, and the Washington Square Players. Katharine Cornell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington Square Players
The Washington Square Players (WSP) was a theatre troupe and production company that existed from 1915 to 1918 in Manhattan, New York City. It started as a semi-amateur Little Theatre then matured into a Repertory theatre with its own touring company and drama school, while maintaining its goal of presenting only works of artistic merit. It had a great amount of national newspaper coverage and sparked like-minded companies across the country, before it was forced to disband in 1918 due to wartime economic pressure and personnel shortages. Three of its original members would then found the longer-lived Theatre Guild having much the same purpose. Purpose and plan At the "Washington Square Bookshop" owned by the Boni brothers and the adjacent building housing the Liberal Club, an eclectic group of locals used to gather and criticize the state of American theatre. Sometime in late 1914 or early 1915 this group of creative types decided to join forces and produce their own plays. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
