Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place is operated by
Broadway In Chicago, a
Nederlander subsidiary. Located at
Water Tower Place in
Chicago,
Illinois, 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 ...
.
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''.
This was followed by
Broadway In Chicago productions of ''
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'', ''
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, 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 his ...
musical ''
Working
Working may refer to:
* Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community
Arts and media
* Working (musical), ''Working'' (musical), a 1978 musical
* Working (TV series), ''Working'' (TV s ...
'', featuring additional material written by
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer behind ''
In the Heights'' and later ''
Hamilton''.
David Stone, the producer of ''
Wicked'' and ''
Next to Normal,'' 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