Бродвей театры: «Эльші» және оның архитектурасы

Broadway theater in Manhattan, New York

The theater is shorter than its width. At ground level, the facade contains a water table made of stone. The rest of the facade has gold beige brick, which is laid in a diaper pattern. The facade is simple in design, especially when compared with Krapp's other works for the Shubert family. The Ambassador and Ritz (now Walter Kerr) theaters, in particular, were designed in patterned brick, with the only ornamentation being in the arrangement of the brick. This sparse ornamentation may be attributed to the lack of money in the years after World War I. This corner contains the main entrance, which is through a set of metal and glass doors. The center section of the facade has display boxes, and the western section has three pairs of wood and glass doors with segmental arches above them. A marquee hangs above the first floor. The main section of the facade is decorated in a diaper pattern and lacks window openings (some windows are infilled at the second floor near the corner). According to the Shubert Organization, the auditorium has 1,114 seats; The physical seats are divided into 573 seats in the orchestra (including 41 in the orchestra pit), 264 at the front of the balcony, 250 at the rear of the balcony, and 8 in the boxes. There are also 19 standing room only spots. Due to the small site dimensions, the auditorium is oriented on a diagonal axis to increase seating capacity, with the stage to the northwest and the lobby to the southeast. Coatrooms were placed next to the side entrances. There are also paneled marble walls, which curve around to the sides. The rear walls and the balcony's underside contain plasterwork paneling. The balcony's front rail contains Adam style paneling and lights. During the 1900s and 1910s, many theaters in Midtown Manhattan were developed by the Shubert brothers, one of the major theatrical syndicates of the time. The Shuberts originated from Syracuse, New York, and expanded downstate into New York City in the first decade of the 20th century. The brothers controlled a quarter of all plays and three quarters of theatrical ticket sales in the U. S. by 1925. After World War I, the Shuberts contemplated the construction of six theaters along 48th and 49th Streets, just north of Times Square. Of these, only four were built, and only three (the Ambassador, O'Neill, and Kerr) survive.

The Shuberts announced plans for their six new theaters in September 1920. The Ambassador, announced that November, was the first new theater that the Shuberts planned to build along 48th and 49th Streets. The Shuberts held a 21 year lease on the theater that extended from August 1919 to August 1940. The brothers believed that the 49th Street site could be as profitable as theaters on 42nd Street, which historically was Times Square's legitimate theatrical hub. The Shuberts built the Ambassador Theatre in 82 days, then a record for theatrical construction. The musical comedy The Rose Girl was announced in January 1921 as the Ambassador's first production, and the theater opened on February 11 with The Rose Girl. Biff, Bang, Bang! was staged that May, followed later the same year by the theater's first true hit: and many of its early productions were not successful. as well as an American version of Eduard Künneke's Caroline the next year featuring Tessa Kosta. The operetta The Dream Girl opened in 1924 with music by Victor Herbert, who had died several months previously. as well as William A. Brady and Owen Davis's adaptation of the novel The Great Gatsby in 1926. Laurence Schwab and Frank Mandel signed a two year lease for the Ambassador in June 1926, with plans to renovate the theater and stage their own plays inside. Subsequently, Queen High ran for 367 performances after its opening in September 1926, and Bartlett Cormack staged The Racket late the next year. Most of the Ambassador's productions in the late 1920s were flops, revivals, or transfers from other theaters. Among the shows that transferred were the play Little Accident in 1929, as well as Street Scene later the same year. The following decade started with another transfer, the long running prison drama The Last Mile, in 1930; Blossom Time was revived for a brief run the next year. The Ambassador's next hit was Ayn Rand's Night of January 16th, which opened in September 1935. The new owners insisted on staging only drama, which resulted in many flops in the late 1930s.

In December 1938, the Theatrical Realty Corporation, headed by Lee Shubert, leased the Ambassador Theatre to the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) for use as a broadcasting studio. CBS enlarged the Ambassador's stage and used it to broadcast orchestra performances in early 1939. Later that year, the 1939 version of The Straw Hat Revue was presented at the Ambassador, The Shuberts gave up their lease on the theater in September 1940, and the James P. Knight estate took over. The New York Grand Opera Company performed at the theater in September 1941, and the Ambassador was leased to real estate operator Irving Maidman two months later. The Ambassador returned to showing legitimate productions that November with Cuckoos on the Hearth, which transferred from the Mansfield Theatre. Central Hanover Bank & Trust acquired the Ambassador in January 1942 and resold it to J. Arthur Fischer that June in an all cash transaction. The burlesque revue Wine, Women and Song opened at the theater that September. However, the revue was closed three months later because it was "indecent", namely violating ordinances against obscenities; under the orders of the mayoral administration of Fiorello La Guardia, the Ambassador lost its license to operate as a legitimate theater. The Ambassador's theatrical license was restored in August 1943, just before the opening of a third and final revival of Blossom Time, which ran only 47 performances. This was followed by a set of Gilbert and Sullivan plays in early 1944, as well as transfers of Decision and School For Brides the same year. The Ambassador was leased to Joseph and Sam Siritzky in August 1945 for film screenings. The Siritzkys' lease was to run for at least five years, with options for extensions. The Ambassador was used as a movie house and as a radio and television studio for the next 11 years. For the next three years, the theater was used exclusively for screening foreign films. The Siritzkys suspended their operations at the Ambassador in mid 1950 and departed to France. That August, DuMont Television Network signed a five year lease for the Ambassador and immediately began remodeling it for use as a broadcast studio. The wooden stage was resurfaced with a smooth finish of magnesium chloride, and a partitioned control room was added. DuMont opened its studio in September 1950

In July 1956, the Shuberts announced that they would restore the Ambassador to legitimate theater use. The comedy The Loud Red Patrick, which opened that October, was the first production at the reopened theater. Generally, the productions of the revived Ambassador were no more successful than those that were staged in the theater's original Broadway run. In 1957, the Ambassador hosted Eugenia with Tallulah Bankhead; a transfer of the long running The Diary of Anne Frank; This was followed in 1958 by a limited run of Back to Methuselah with Faye Emerson and Tyrone Power, as well as Comes a Day with Judith Anderson and George C. Scott (the latter in his Broadway debut). The next year, Jean Dixon, Melvyn Douglas, and E. G. Marshall performed in The Gang's All Here. The long running Paddy Chayefsky play The Tenth Man transferred from the Booth Theatre in 1961, Subsequently, the theater hosted A Passage to India Another transfer, Stop the World – I Want to Get Off, was staged at the Ambassador in 1963, The Ambassador also hosted limited concert engagements from the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Charles Aznavour in 1965. The theater then hosted The Lion in Winter with Robert Preston and Rosemary Harris in 1966, as well as Robert Anderson's collection of one act plays, You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, starting in 1967. The Ambassador ended the decade with runs of Joseph Heller's We Bombed in New Haven in 1968 and Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's Celebration in 1969. The Ambassador hosted various types of productions in the 1970s, ranging from adaptations of children's stories to musical parodies. This was followed by Paul Sills' Story Theatre the same year. which played in repertory with Sills's Metamorphoses near the end of its run. The Ambassador also hosted Melvin Van Peebles's musical Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death in 1971, as well as a revival of Scapino with Jim Dale in 1974. The Ambassador hosted three solo productions in the mid 1970s: and Miss Margarida's Way with Estelle Parsons (1977). and Eubie! in 1978.