American Airlines Theatre
The American Airlines Theatre, originally the Selwyn Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 227 West 42nd Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Built in 1918, it was designed by George Keister and developed by brothers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, for whom the theater was originally named. The theater is owned by the city and state governments of New York, under a lease to New 42nd Street. It has 740 seats across two levels and is operated by Roundabout Theatre Company. Since 2000, the theater has been named for American Airlines (AA), which bought the theater's naming rights. The Selwyn Theatre was designed in the Italian Renaissance style, with a brick-and-terracotta facade. The auditorium, which is on 43rd Street, had been accessed from the six-story Selwyn Building on 42nd Street, which collapsed at the end of 1997. The modern theater is accessed through the ten-story New 42nd Street Building, which has an illuminated steel-and-glass facade. The fan-shaped auditorium is designed in a blue-and-gold color scheme and has a shallow balcony, box seats, and murals. There are lounges for Roundabout subscribers above the auditorium and technical spaces in the basement. In addition, the New 42nd Street Building contains offices, rehearsal rooms, and an off-Broadway theater above the American Airlines' lobby. The theater opened on October 2, 1918, with Jane Cowl's Information Please, and it initially hosted legitimate musical and dramatic productions. Arch Selwyn presented revues such as Wake Up and Dream (1929) and Three's a Crowd (1930). After Arch Selwyn's bankruptcy in 1934, the Selwyn became a cinema; the Brandt family took over the theater in 1937 and operated it for the next five decades. The Selwyn largely showed movies, except in 1949–1950, when legitimate plays alternated with film screenings. There were several proposals to redevelop theaters along 42nd Street in the 1980s. New 42nd Street took over the Selwyn and several neighboring theaters in 1990, leasing the Selwyn to the Roundabout Theatre Company in 1997. Following the collapse of the Selwyn Building, the theater was redesigned as part of the New 42nd Street Building. The theater reopened on June 30, 2000, after being renamed for AA.
Excerpt from the Wikipedia article American Airlines Theatre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).American Airlines Theatre
West 42nd Street, New York Manhattan
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Geographical coordinates (GPS)
Latitude | Longitude |
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N 40.7565 ° | E -73.987722222222 ° |
Address
Times Square Theater
West 42nd Street 217
10036 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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