Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place is operated by Broadway In Chicago, a Nederlander subsidiary. Located at Water Tower Place in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

, it was formerly known as Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. It was reopened in 2004 and seats 549.

History

The original Drury Lane Water Tower Place opened in 1976, but was closed in 1983 and became a

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

. Drury Lane Theatre group founder Tony DeSantis later spent $9 million to transform another movie theater located nearby on 175 East Chestnut Street just off Michigan Avenue into a showplace for live performances in Chicago. The new Drury Lane Water Tower Place, opened May 18, 2004 with similar décor and mainstream musical and comedy line-ups of its sister theater in Oakbrook. This next era for the 549-seat Drury Lane Water Tower began with performances of ''

The Full Monty ''The Full Monty'' is a 1997 British comedy film directed by Peter Cattaneo, starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy. The film ...

''. This was followed by Broadway In Chicago productions of ''

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ''The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'' is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by William Finn, based on a book by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers on a fictional sp ...

'', '' SHOUT! The Mod Musical'' and ''

Xanadu Xanadu may refer to: * Shangdu, the ancient summer capital of Kublai Khan's empire in China * a metaphor for opulence or an idyllic place, based upon Coleridge's description of Shangdu in his poem ''Kubla Khan'' Other places * Xanadu (Titan), ...

.'' On April 6, 2010, Broadway In Chicago announced that it had entered into a long-term agreement with General Growth Properties, then the owner of Water Tower Place shopping center, to re-open the theatre as the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. The theater officially re-opened on September 24, 2010, with a short series of concert performances by

Sutton Foster Sutton Lenore Foster (born March 18, 1975) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She is known for her work on the Broadway stage, for which she has won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice, in 2002 for her role as Millie Di ...

, followed by a production of ''Traces'', a French Canadian urban acrobatics show. The first marquee production at the Broadway Playhouse was a new production of the 1978

Studs Terkel Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral hi ...

musical '' Working'', featuring additional material written by

Lin-Manuel Miranda Lin-Manuel Miranda (; born January 16, 1980) is an American songwriter, actor, playwright and filmmaker. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals '' Hamilton'' (2015) and ''In the Heights'' (2005), and the soundtracks for the Disney animat ...

, the writer behind ''

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'' and later '' Hamilton''. David Stone, the producer of '' Wicked'' and ''

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,'' as well as Mark Platt were also involved with the show that went up in spring of 2011.

References

External links

Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place
(Official site) {{DEFAULTSORT:Broadway Playhouse At Water Tower Place Theatres in Chicago 1976 establishments in Illinois Arts organizations established in 1976