Palace Theatre, New York
Encyclopedia
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
(at 47th) in midtown-Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
History
Designed by architects Kirchoff & Rose, the theatre was built by Martin BeckMartin Beck (vaudeville)
Martin Beck was a vaudeville theatre owner who founded Orpheum Circuit, Inc.-Early Life and Career:Martin Beck was born on 31 July, 1868 at Liptovský Mikuláš, a town in northern Slovakia that at the time of his birth was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
a California vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
entrepreneur and Broadway impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
. The project experienced a number of business problems before it opened. E. F. Albee, one of the main executives for B. F. Keith and his powerful vaudeville circuit, demanded that Beck turn over three-quarters of the stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
in the theatre in order to use acts from the Keith circuit. In addition, Oscar Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein I
Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...
was the only person who could offer Keith acts in that section of Broadway, so Beck paid him off with $225,000. The theatre finally opened on March 24, 1913 with headliner Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn was a popular American comedian and actor noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor....
. To "play the Palace" meant that an entertainer had reached the pinnacle of his career, and it became a popular venue with performers like Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
, Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
, Enrico Caruso, Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show...
, Sophie Tucker
Sophie Tucker
Sophie Tucker was a Russian/Ukrainian-born American singer and actress. Known for her stentorian delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century...
, George Jessel
George Jessel (actor)
George Albert Jessel was an American illustrated song "model," actor, singer, songwriter, and Academy Award-winning movie producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies...
, Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
, Vernon and Irene Castle
Vernon and Irene Castle
Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers of the early 20th century. They are credited with invigorating the popularity of modern dancing. Vernon Castle was born William Vernon Blyth in Norwich, Norfolk, England...
, Gus Edwards, Eddie Leonard
Eddie Leonard
Eddie Leonard , born Lemuel Golden Toney, was a vaudevillian and a man considered the greatest American minstrel of his day, at a time when minstrel shows were still acceptable as entertainment. He performed in vaudeville for 45 years before that medium faded in the 1920s, and was known for such...
, Burns and Allen
Burns and Allen
Burns and Allen, an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, worked together as a comedy team in vaudeville, films, radio and television and achieved great success over four decades.-Vaudeville:...
, Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, The Marx Brothers, Blossom Seeley
Blossom Seeley
-Biography:Seeley was born Minnie Guyer, in San Francisco, California, USA. A top vaudeville headliner, she was known as the "Queen of Syncopation" and helped bring jazz and ragtime into the mainstream of American music. She introduced the Shelton Brooks classic "Some of These Days" in vaudeville...
, Benny Fields
Benny Fields
Benny Fields was a popular singer of the early 20th century, best known as one-half of the Blossom Seeley-Benny Fields vaudeville team...
, Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
, Bill Robinson
Bill Robinson
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet, and an expressive...
, Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Wheeler and Woolsey, Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
, Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
, and Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
.
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
came a rise in the popularity of film and radio, and vaudeville began its decline. In 1929 the two-a-day Palace shows were increased to three. By 1932, the Palace moved to four shows a day and lowered its admission price. In November of that year, it converted to a movie house. Appearing on the closing bill when the venue ended its stage policy were Nick Lucas
Nick Lucas
Nick Lucas born Dominic Nicholas Anthony Lucanese was an American singer and pioneer jazz guitarist, remembered as "the grandfather of the jazz guitar", whose peak of popularity lasted from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s.-Career:In 1922, at the age of 25, he gained renown with his hit renditions...
and Hal Le Roy
Hal Le Roy
Hal Le Roy was a dancer, actor and singer appearing on stage, in film and on television.-Career:Le Roy was born John LeRoy Schotte in Cincinnati in 1913. He broke into New York theater as a dancer, and quickly worked his way into Broadway roles where his dance style created a sensation in the 1931...
. There was a brief return to a live revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
format in 1936, when Broadway producer Nils Granlund
Nils Granlund
Nils T. Granlund was an American Broadway show producer, radio industry pioneer, a publicist for Marcus Loew who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
staged a series of variety shows beginning with "Broadway Heat Wave" featuring female orchestra leader Rita Rio. Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
had its world premiere at the theatre on May 1, 1941.
In the 1950s, the RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) chain tried to revive vaudeville with shows by such names as Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
, Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
, Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
, Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...
, and Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
. While the shows were successful, they did not lead to a revival of the genre. On January 29, 1966, the Palace reopened as a legitimate theatre with the original production of the musical Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...
, although for a period of time it showed films and presented concert performances by Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
, Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
, Eddie Fisher
Eddie Fisher (singer)
Edwin Jack "Eddie" Fisher , was an American entertainer. He was one of the world's most famous and successful singers in the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. His divorce from his first wife, Debbie Reynolds, to marry his best friend's widow, Elizabeth Taylor, garnered...
, Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, Vikki Carr
Vikki Carr
Vikki Carr is an American singer and humanitarian from El Paso, Texas. She has performed in a variety of music genres, including jazz, pop and country, but has enjoyed her greatest success singing in Spanish.-Career:After taking the stage name 'Vikki Carr', she signed with Liberty Records in 1962...
, and the like between theatrical engagements.
In the 1980s, a towering hotel was built above the theater, cantilevered over the auditorium; today, the theater is practically invisible behind an enormous wall of billboards and under the skyscraper, and only the marquee
Marquee (sign)
A marquee is most commonly a structure placed over the entrance to a hotel or theatre. It has signage stating either the name of the establishment or, in the case of theatres, the play or movie and the artist appearing at that venue...
is visible.
The Palace is notorious, too, for its enormous and difficult-to-sell second balcony in which nearly every seat has an obstructed view.
The theatre was the original home to the musical Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale. The first published version of the fairy tale was a rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740...
. A notable tenant and one of the longest running shows was Aida
Aida (musical)
Aida is a musical with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and produced by Walt Disney Theatrical....
, which ran for over four years, from 2000 through 2004, and 1,852 performances and won four Tony awards. The theatre recently housed Legally Blonde: The Musical, a stage adaptation of the 2001 film, which played its final performance on October 19, 2008. A revival of West Side Story
West Side Story
West Side Story is an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins...
opened on March 19, 2009 and closed on January 2, 2011.
The Palace Theatre is currently owned and operated by the Nederlander Organization
Nederlander Organization
The Nederlander Organization, founded in 1912 by David T. Nederlander and based in Detroit, Michigan, is one of the largest operators of legitimate theatres and music venuesin the United States. Its first acquisition was a lease on the Detroit Opera House in 1912. The building was demolished in...
and Stewart F. Lane
Stewart F. Lane
Stewart F. Lane is a five-time Tony Award winning Broadway producer with two shows currently on Broadway: Priscilla Queen of the Desert andWar Horse. He also has a DVD out now based on his critically acclaimed book, Let's Put on a Show! and a new book called "Jews of Broadway" He has also...
.
Palace Theatre ghost
The ghost of acrobat Louis Borsalino is said to haunt the theatre. According to various versions of the story Borsalino "fell to his death in the 1950s" and that "Stagehands say that when the theater is empty, the ghost of Borsalino can be seen swinging from the rafters. He lets out a blood-curdling scream, then re-enacts his nose dive." However, in reality Borsalino who was a member of the Four Casting Pearls was only injured when he fell 18 feet during a performance on August 28, 1935 before 800 theatre goers. Borsalino's act was not a trapeze but rather fixed towers in which the acrobats are "cast from one to the other." Comedian Pat Henning started his act after the accident before the curtain was pulled.Notable productions
- 1967: Henry, Sweet HenryHenry, Sweet HenryHenry, Sweet Henry is a musical with a book by Nunnally Johnson and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill.Based on the novel The World of Henry Orient by Johnson's daughter Nora and the subsequent film of the same name, the plot focuses on Valerie and Marian, two wealthy, love-struck teenagers who stalk...
- 1968: George M!George M!George M! is a Broadway musical based on the life of George M. Cohan, the biggest Broadway star of his day who was known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway." The book for the musical was written by Michael Stewart, John Pascal, and Francine Pascal. Music and lyrics were, of course, by George M...
- 1970: ApplauseApplause (musical)Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical....
- 1973: CyranoCyrano (musical)Cyrano is a musical with a book and lyrics by Anthony Burgess and music by Michael J. Lewis.Based on Edmond Rostand's classic 1897 play of the same name, it focuses on a love triangle involving the large-nosed poetic Cyrano de Bergerac, his beautiful cousin Roxana, and his classically handsome but...
- 1974: LoreleiLorelei (musical)Lorelei is a musical with a book by Kenny Solms and Gail Parent, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Jule Styne. It is a revision of the Joseph Fields-Anita Loos book for the 1949 production Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and includes many of the Jule Styne-Leo Robin songs written for...
- 1975: Goodtime CharleyGoodtime CharleyGoodtime Charley is a musical with a book by Sidney Michaels, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady.A humorous take on actual historical events, it focuses on the Dauphin of France, who evolves from a hedonistic young man enamored of women in general into a regal king while Joan...
- 1976: Home Sweet HomerHome Sweet Homer (musical)Home Sweet Homer is a musical with a book by Roland Kibbee and Albert Marre, lyrics by Charles Burr and Forman Brown, and music by Mitch Leigh.Originally called Odyssey, it is one of the most notorious flops in Broadway theatre history...
- 1977: Man of La ManchaMan of La ManchaMan of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
- 1977: An Evening with Diana RossAn Evening with Diana RossAn Evening with Diana Ross is a 1977 live double album released by American singer Diana Ross on the Motown label. Recorded live at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles during the international tour of Ross' celebrated one-woman show, for which she was awarded a special Tony Award after the show's...
- 1979: The Grand TourThe Grand Tour (musical)The Grand Tour is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.Based on S. N. Behrman's play Jacobowsky and the Colonel, the story concerns an unlikely pair. S.L. Jacobowsky, a Polish-Jewish intellectual, has purchased a car he cannot drive....
- 1979: BeatlemaniaBeatlemania (musical)Beatlemania was a Broadway musical revue focused on the music of The Beatles as it related to the events and changing attitudes of the tumultuous Sixties...
- 1981: Woman of the YearWoman of the Year (musical)Woman of the Year is a musical with a book by Peter Stone and score by John Kander and Fred Ebb.Based on the Ring Lardner Jr.-Michael Kanin screenplay for the 1942 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film of the same name, the musical changes the newspaper reporters of the original to television...
- 1983: La Cage aux Folles
- 1991: The Will Rogers Follies
- 1994: Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast (musical)Beauty and the Beast is a musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice and a book by Linda Woolverton, based on the 1991 Disney film of the same name. Seven new songs were written for the stage musical...
- 2000: AidaAida (musical)Aida is a musical with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and produced by Walt Disney Theatrical....
- 2005: All Shook UpAll Shook Up (musical)All Shook Up is a jukebox musical with Elvis Presley music, with a book by Joe DiPietro. The story is based on William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.-Production history:...
- 2006: LestatLestat (musical)Lestat is a Broadway musical inspired by Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. The score is by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, book by Linda Woolverton and directed by Robert Jess Roth with musical staging by Matt West...
- 2007: Legally Blonde: The Musical
- 2008: Liza's at the Palace...!Liza's at the Palace...!Liza's at The Palace...! was a concert presented by Liza Minnelli at the Palace Theatre on Broadway from December 3, 2008 through January 4, 2009....
- 2009: West Side Story (2009 Revival)
- 2011: Priscilla Queen of the Desert