New Amsterdam Theater

The New Amsterdam Theater is a theater located on the 42 {{E}} street close to Times Square at New York. It was initially open in 1903 and was a high place of the fashionable life of New York mainly of 1913 with 1927 under the nickname of Ziegfeld Follies .

After a transformation into cinema starting from 1937 then several years of decrepitude, the room was rented in 1994 by the Walt Disney Company for 97 years. It launched thereafter an important project of rehabilitation of the surrounding district, the Disney' S New Deuce. Disney renovated the room thanks to the engineers and artists of Walt Disney Imagineering and inaugurated for the second time the theater the April 2nd 1997.

Since New Amsterdam Theater presents the musical comedies of Disney regularly, produced by the Walt Disney Theatrical Productions.

History

In 1903, two business managers A.L. Erlanger and Marcus Klaw launch the construction of a large theater in the middle of the district of Times Square to New York, with two steps of Broadway for an investment of more than 1,5 million $ (of the time). The building was built in the style Art nouveau according to the plans of the architects Henry Herts and Hugh Tillering.
It was at the time more the big room of spectacle of the city with 1 702 sitted places and the most luxurious decoration. It is with the Lyceum Theater still builds the same year the oldest theater in activity. The name of the theater comes from that of the town of New York before the British colonization of 1624 with 1664.

The first spectacle was Dream the one night of summer of William Shakespeare with a first the October 26th 1903, but the following ones were given in October. With this occasion the NewYork Times compares in an article the room with a Louvre of the Théâtre.

From 1913, the room is taken again by Florenz Ziegfield which presents to it its famous Ziegfeld Follies . They will be presented until in 1937 because starting from this date the Grande depression touches the the United States. The room is then transformed into cinema.

In 1982, an association, the Nederlander Organization repurchases the building and projects to rehabilitate the place. But in 1990, the State and the town of New York decide to take again possession of the uncommon theaters of the 42e street and the neighborhoods, by using legal means going until the lawsuit.

The town of New York, under the impulse of its mayor Rudolph Giuliani, taken Robert AM Stern as consultant to renovate the district. This last at the time was engaged on or had just delivered several architectural projects for the Walt Disney Company. After several meetings, Disney signed in 1993 a lease near the city for one duration of 97 years. The company engaged also a restoration of 36 million $ realized under the direction of Walt Disney Imagineering.

The new room reopens the April 2nd 1997 but no spectacle will be presented there before November. The first spectacle was during one short period, from May 15th to 23rd, the version of Alan Menken and Tim Rice of the King David then the first of the film Hercules from June 13rd to 15th 1997.

The first musical comedy of Disney began the November 13rd 1997, it is celebrates it the King lion which had started in July with the Minskoff Theater but took its official districts in this theater. Since Disney launched close to a comedy per annum.

The room proposes also special events like caritative evenings.

Restoration

Walt Disney Company required of its artistic division Walt Disney Imagineering responsible for the design and the creation of the parks to topics to restore the theater. The engineers and artists were helped by the architect Hugh Hardy of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates and by the Tishman Construction Corporation which had just finished that of the Carnegie Hall.

The Disney artists for example restored the decorated planks, the sculptures and paintings of the rooms accessible to the public. A room of the basement which was in the beginning a bar and which was used as storage section for chairs for the cinema had been submerged by a flood up to one meter. The artists recreated the decorations starting from the remaining portions and of photographs of époque.
The broad auditorium was subtly widened to accommodate 200 additional people. Its dimensions 26 m broad are currently, 27,5 m length and 24 m in height (ground of the orchestra up to the ceiling of the dome) with an arch for the 12 m broad scene for 11 top. The arch is decorated of 16 sculptures of Paon S and vines by St John Issing and is surmounted by an allegorical fresco of Robert Blum and Albert Wenzel. The balconies of the room are them decorated scenes of Shakespeare, Wagner and others. The scene is 30,5 m wide for 18 of depth and an elevator makes it possible to join the slides located on the floor. The enormous elevator of the beginning of the XXe century was replaced by smaller modern.

The building

New Amsterdam Theater is located in the block at the south of the 42e street and between 7th and the 8th avenue. The principal part of the theater are the slides and the auditorium which are on the 41e street and not the 42e.

The frontage of the theater is rather narrow compared to the other establishments of the street. The porch makes a little less than 8 m broad but with a space on the side for ticketting, with 14,5 Mr. This space is regularly covered with great publicities for the productions of the moment. Then broad a " couloir" of almost 20 m length allows to join the room. They is actually two named spaces Lobby then Foyer .

the Lobby has marble panels (masked between 1937 and 1987 by mirrors) and low-reliefs out of plaster, the latter works of Roland Hinton Perry
the Foyer had paintings and decorations of style art nouveau but during the period cinema they were covered by a masking painting black. The artists of Disney had to clean this layer and to reinforce it, currently giving an aspect of vitroceramics to paintings. In the same way the stained glass of the central dome was missing. They used the decorations located at the origin under the stained glass and preserved by a layer of dirtiness to reproduce it.

After having crossed the Hearth, the spectators enter the Promenade , a curved corridor serving the accesses to the room, the latter is placed according to an axis parallel with the street. The parquet floor of the walk was covered with a fitted carpet and the woodworks were revived.

On the line the auditorium is and on the left, the Réception . The Réception is a room for receptions with much of decoration wood of carved oak and a counter located in front of an imposing chimney.

The Auditorium comprises an orchestra, a mezzanine and a balcony and twelve loggias (called boxings , 2 of each with dimensions on the level mezzanine, the remainder with the balcony). The arch above the scene comprises a large fresco with the allegories of the Poésie, the Vérité, the Mensonge surrounded of the Love, the Melancholy, the Superstition, the Supernatural one, Death, the Knighthood and the Lovesong.

With the basement the New Amsterdam Room is who had been flooded and transformed into deposit for objects during the years cinema. It is used as room of reception and has an oval counter in its center.

Disney had bought and arranged a Disney Store on the left of the entry to widen the frontage of the theater. It closed and was replaced a brewery.

Above the roof a named room Aerial Gardens was used during several years like discotheque and cabaret. Disney did not indicate which would be its new use.

Spectacles

New Amsterdam Theater was especially known for the series of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 to 1937 which launched many stars of the theater. It is possible to note:

the representation of Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway of George Mr. Cohan
the The Merry Widow of Franz Lehar in 1907 with the couple Vernon and Irene Castle immortalized in the Large Farandole in 1939
services of Marilyn Miller in Sunny and Rosalie during the Years 1920
appearance of Eddie Cantor in Whoopee!
last appearance in 1932 of the duet Fred and Adele Astaire in The Band Coach
Walter Huston in Othello in 1937 for closing

For the Disney productions to see this page.

Random links: