Algonquin Round Table No Sirree! What was No Sirree? it was perhaps inevitable that they would write and stage their own revue. No Sirree!, staged for one night only in April 1922, Who was in it? Acts included: "Opening Chorus" featuring Woollcott, Toohey, Kaufman, Connelly, Adams and Benchley with violinist Jascha Heifetz What songs were in the play? "He Who Gets Flapped", a musical number featuring the song "The Everlastin' Ingenue Blues" written by Dorothy Parker and performed by Robert Sherwood Any other songs? "Zowie, or the Curse of an Akins Heart"; "The Greasy Hag, an O'Neill Play in One Act" with Kaufman, Connelly and Woollcott; Was it successful? With the success of No Sirree! the Round Tablers hoped What did they hope for? Kaufman and Connelly funded the revue, named The Forty-niners. The revue opened in November 1922 and was a failure, running for just 15 performances. What other parts did the Round Table play in No Sirree? The only item of note to emerge from No Sirree! was Robert Benchley's contribution, The Treasurer's Report. Benchley's disjointed parody so delighted those in attendance What happened with The Treasurer's Report? Benchley's disjointed parody so delighted those in attendance that Irving Berlin hired Benchley in 1923 to deliver the Report as part of Berlin's Music Box Revue for $500 a week.
Was it successful as part of Berlin's Music Box Revue?
Was The Treasurer's Report successful as part of Berlin's Music Box Revue?
Given the literary and theatrical activities of the Round Table members, it was perhaps inevitable that they would write and stage their own revue. No Sirree!, staged for one night only in April 1922, was a take-off of a then-popular European touring revue called La Chauve-Souris, directed by Nikita Balieff.  No Sirree! had its genesis at the studio of Neysa McMein, which served as something of a salon for Round Tablers away from the Algonquin. Acts included: "Opening Chorus" featuring Woollcott, Toohey, Kaufman, Connelly, Adams and Benchley with violinist Jascha Heifetz providing offstage, off-key accompaniment; "He Who Gets Flapped", a musical number featuring the song "The Everlastin' Ingenue Blues" written by Dorothy Parker and performed by Robert Sherwood accompanied by "chorus girls" including Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Hayes, Ruth Gillmore, Lenore Ulric and Mary Brandon; "Zowie, or the Curse of an Akins Heart"; "The Greasy Hag, an O'Neill Play in One Act" with Kaufman, Connelly and Woollcott; and "Mr. Whim Passes By--An A. A. Milne Play."  The only item of note to emerge from No Sirree! was Robert Benchley's contribution, The Treasurer's Report. Benchley's disjointed parody so delighted those in attendance that Irving Berlin hired Benchley in 1923 to deliver the Report as part of Berlin's Music Box Revue for $500 a week. In 1928, Report was later made into a short sound film in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system by Fox Film Corporation. The film marked the beginning of a second career for Benchley in Hollywood.  With the success of No Sirree! the Round Tablers hoped to duplicate it with an "official" Vicious Circle production open to the public with material performed by professional actors. Kaufman and Connelly funded the revue, named The Forty-niners. The revue opened in November 1922 and was a failure, running for just 15 performances. CANNOTANSWER
Report was later made into a short sound film in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system by Fox Film Corporation.
The Algonquin Round Table was a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929. At these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay, and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country.

Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members of the Circle to collaborate creatively. The entire group worked together successfully only once, however, to create a revue called No Sirree! which helped launch a Hollywood career for Round Tabler Robert Benchley.

In its ten years of association, the Round Table and a number of its members acquired national reputations, both for their contributions to literature and for their sparkling wit. Although some of their contemporaries, and later in life even some of its members, disparaged the group, its reputation has endured long after its dissolution.

Origin
The group that would become the Round Table began meeting in June 1919 as the result of a practical joke carried out by theatrical press agent John Peter Toohey. Toohey, annoyed at The New York Times drama critic Alexander Woollcott for refusing to plug one of Toohey's clients (Eugene O'Neill) in his column, organized a luncheon supposedly to welcome Woollcott back from World War I, where he had been a correspondent for Stars and Stripes. Instead, Toohey used the occasion to poke fun at Woollcott on a number of fronts. Woollcott's enjoyment of the joke and the success of the event prompted Toohey to suggest that the group in attendance meet at the Algonquin each day for lunch.

The group first gathered in the Algonquin's Pergola Room (later called the Oak Room) at a long rectangular table. As they increased in number, Algonquin manager Frank Case moved them to the Rose Room and a round table. Initially the group called itself "The Board" and the luncheons "Board meetings". After being assigned a waiter named Luigi, the group re-christened itself "Luigi Board". Finally, they became "The Vicious Circle" although "The Round Table" gained wide currency after a caricature by cartoonist Edmund Duffy of the Brooklyn Eagle portrayed the group sitting at a round table and wearing armor.

Membership

Charter members of the Round Table included:

 Franklin Pierce Adams, columnist
 Robert Benchley, humorist and actor
 Heywood Broun, columnist and sportswriter (married to Ruth Hale)
 Marc Connelly, playwright
 Ruth Hale, freelance writer who worked for women's rights
 George S. Kaufman, playwright and director
 Dorothy Parker, critic, poet, short-story writer, and screenwriter
 Brock Pemberton, Broadway producer
 Murdock Pemberton, Broadway publicist, writer
 Harold Ross, The New Yorker editor
 Robert E. Sherwood, author and playwright
 John Peter Toohey, Broadway publicist

 Alexander Woollcott, critic and journalist

Membership was not official or fixed for so many others who moved in and out of the Circle. Some of these included:

 Tallulah Bankhead, actress
 Norman Bel Geddes, stage and industrial designer
 Noël Coward, playwright
 Blyth Daly, actress
 Edna Ferber, author and playwright
 Eva Le Gallienne, actress
 Margalo Gillmore, actress
 Jane Grant, journalist and feminist (married to Harold Ross)
 Beatrice Kaufman, editor and playwright (married to George S. Kaufman)
 Margaret Leech, writer and historian
 Herman J. Mankiewicz, screenwriter 
 Harpo Marx, comedian and film star
 Neysa McMein, magazine illustrator
 Alice Duer Miller, writer
 Donald Ogden Stewart, playwright and screenwriter
 Frank Sullivan, journalist and humorist
 Deems Taylor, composer
 Estelle Winwood, actress and comedian
 Peggy Wood, actress

Activities
In addition to the daily luncheons, members of the Round Table worked and associated with each other almost constantly. The group was devoted to games, including cribbage and poker. The group had its own poker club, the Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight Club, which met at the hotel on Saturday nights. Regulars at the game included Kaufman, Adams, Broun, Ross and Woollcott, with non-Round Tablers Herbert Bayard Swope, silk merchant Paul Hyde Bonner, baking heir Raoul Fleischmann, actor Harpo Marx, and writer Ring Lardner sometimes sitting in. The group also played charades (which they called simply "The Game") and the "I can give you a sentence" game, which spawned Dorothy Parker's memorable sentence using the word horticulture: "You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."

Members often visited Neshobe Island, a private island co-owned by several "Algonks"—but governed by Woollcott as a "benevolent tyrant", as his biographer Samuel Hopkins Adams charitably put it—located on several acres in the middle of Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. There they would engage in their usual array of games including Wink murder, which they called simply "Murder", plus croquet.

A number of Round Tablers were inveterate practical jokers, constantly pulling pranks on one another. As time went on the jokes became ever more elaborate. Harold Ross and Jane Grant once spent weeks playing a particularly memorable joke on Woollcott involving a prized portrait of himself. They had several copies made, each slightly more askew than the last, and would periodically secretly swap them out and then later comment to Woollcott "What on earth is wrong with your portrait?" until Woollcott was beside himself. Eventually they returned the original portrait.

No Sirree!
Given the literary and theatrical activities of the Round Table members, it was perhaps inevitable that they would write and stage their own revue. No Sirree!, staged for one night only in April 1922, was a take-off of a then-popular European touring revue called La Chauve-Souris, directed by Nikita Balieff.

No Sirree! had its genesis at the studio of Neysa McMein, which served as something of a salon for Round Tablers away from the Algonquin. Acts included: "Opening Chorus" featuring Woollcott, Toohey, Kaufman, Connelly, Adams and Benchley with violinist Jascha Heifetz providing offstage, off-key accompaniment; "He Who Gets Flapped", a musical number featuring the song "The Everlastin' Ingenue Blues" written by Dorothy Parker and performed by Robert Sherwood accompanied by "chorus girls" including Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Hayes, Ruth Gillmore, Lenore Ulric and Mary Brandon; "Zowie, or the Curse of an Akins Heart"; "The Greasy Hag, an O'Neill Play in One Act" with Kaufman, Connelly and Woollcott; and "Mr. Whim Passes By—An A. A. Milne Play."

The only item of note to emerge from No Sirree! was Robert Benchley's contribution, The Treasurer's Report. Benchley's disjointed parody so delighted those in attendance that Irving Berlin hired Benchley in 1923 to deliver the Report as part of Berlin's Music Box Revue for $500 a week. In 1928, Report was later made into a short sound film in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system by Fox Film Corporation. The film marked the beginning of a second career for Benchley in Hollywood.

With the success of No Sirree! the Round Tablers hoped to duplicate it with an "official" Vicious Circle production open to the public with material performed by professional actors. Kaufman and Connelly funded the revue, named The Forty-niners. The revue opened in November 1922 and was a failure, running for just 15 performances.

Decline
As members of the Round Table moved into ventures outside New York City, inevitably the group drifted apart. By the early 1930s the Vicious Circle was broken. Edna Ferber said she realized it when she arrived at the Rose Room for lunch one day in 1932 and found the group's table occupied by a family from Kansas. Frank Case was asked what happened to the group. He shrugged and replied, "What became of the reservoir at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street? These things do not last forever." Some members of the group remained friends after its dissolution. Parker and Benchley in particular remained close up until his death in 1945, although her political leanings did strain their relationship. Others, as the group itself would come to understand when it gathered following Woollcott's death in 1943, simply realized that they had nothing to say to one another.

Public response and legacy
Because a number of the members of the Round Table had regular newspaper columns, the activities and quips of various Round Table members were reported in the national press. This brought Round Tablers widely into the public consciousness as renowned wits.

Not all of their contemporaries were fans of the group. Their critics accused them of logrolling, or exchanging favorable plugs of one another's works, and of rehearsing their witticisms in advance. James Thurber (who lived in the hotel) was a detractor of the group, accusing them of being too consumed by their elaborate practical jokes. H. L. Mencken, who was much admired by many in the Circle, was also a critic, commenting to fellow writer Anita Loos that "their ideals were those of a vaudeville actor, one who is extremely 'in the know' and inordinately trashy".

The group showed up in the 1923 best-seller Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton. She sarcastically described a group she called "the Sophisticates":

Groucho Marx, brother of Round Table associate Harpo, was never comfortable amidst the viciousness of the Vicious Circle. Therein he remarked "The price of admission is a serpent's tongue and a half-concealed stiletto." Even some members of the Round Table disparaged it later in life. Dorothy Parker in particular criticized the group.

Despite Parker's bleak assessment and while it is true that some members of the Round Table are perhaps now "famous for being famous" instead of for their literary output, Round Table members and associates contributed to the literary landscape, including Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Circle members Kaufman, Connelly and Sherwood (who won four) and by associate Ferber and the legacy of Ross's New Yorker. Others made lasting contributions to the realms of stage and screen — Tallulah Bankhead and Eva Le Gallienne became Broadway greats and the films of Harpo and Benchley remain popular; and Parker has remained renowned for her short stories and literary reviews.

The Algonquin Round Table, as well as the number of other literary and theatrical greats who lodged there, helped earn the Algonquin Hotel its status as a New York City Historic Landmark. The hotel was so designated in 1987. In 1996 the hotel was designated a national literary landmark by the Friends of Libraries USA based on the contributions of "The Round Table Wits". The organization's bronze plaque is attached to the front of the hotel.
Although the Rose Room was removed from the Algonquin in a 1998 remodel, the hotel paid tribute to the group by commissioning and hanging the painting A Vicious Circle by Natalie Ascencios, depicting the Round Table and also created a replica of the original table. The hotel occasionally stages an original musical production, The Talk of the Town, in the Oak Room. Its latest production started September 11, 2007 and ran through the end of the year.

A film about the members, The Ten-Year Lunch (1987), won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The dramatic film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) recounts the Round Table from the perspective of Dorothy Parker.

In popular culture
Portions of the 1981 film Rich and Famous were set in the Algonquin and one of the film's characters, Liz Hamilton (played by Jacqueline Bisset), refers to the Round Table during the film.

The Algonquin Round Table was featured in "The Young Indiana Jones and the Scandal of 1920", a 1993 episode of the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which the title character meets the group and attends at least two lunches. Wonderful Nonsense - The Algonquin Round Table is a documentary produced for the DVD release of that film in 2008.

In season 2, episode 4 of Seinfeld entitled “The Phone Message” (1991), Jerry tells Donna, the woman he is seeing at the time: "Boy, I bet you got a regular Algonquin round table there", after Donna says she discussed a Dockers commercial with friends.

The 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle concerns Dorothy Parker and her relationship with Robert Benchley and the larger group.

In 2009, Robert Benchley's grandson, Nat Benchley, and co-editor Kevin C. Fitzpatrick published The Lost Algonquin Round Table, a collection of the early writings of the group. Benchley's grandson Peter Benchley wrote the famous shark novel Jaws upon which the Steven Spielberg film is based.

See also

References

External links 
 Algonquin Round Table historical site History notes and news since 1999
 Algonquin Round Table at PBS's American Masters
 

American literary movements
American humorists
Culture of Manhattan
Literary circles
20th-century American literature
Music Box Revue was a musical theatre revue staged by Hassard Short with music by Irving Berlin.  Featuring contributions from a number of writers including Robert Benchley, it debuted at the Music Box Theatre in 1921, where it ran for 440 performances.

See also
"Mysterioso Pizzicato"

References
 Billy Altman, Laughter's Gentle Soul: The Life of Robert Benchley. (New York City: W. W. Norton, 1997. ).
 Internet Broadway Database: Music Box Revue.  URL accessed 6 June 2007.

Musicals by Irving Berlin
1921 musicals
Broadway musicals
Revues The Music Box Theatre is a Broadway theater at 239 West 45th Street (George Abbott Way) in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1921, the Music Box Theatre was designed by C. Howard Crane in a Palladian-inspired style and was constructed for Irving Berlin and Sam H. Harris. It has 1,025 seats across two levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium interior are New York City landmarks.

The facade is made of limestone and is symmetrically arranged, with both Palladian and neo-Georgian motifs. At ground level, the eastern portion of the facade contains the theater's entrance, with a marquee over it, while the stage door is to the west. A double-height central colonnade at the second and third floors conceals a fire-escape staircase; it is flanked by windows in the outer bays. The auditorium contains Adam style detailing, a large balcony, and two outwardly curved box seats within ornate archways. The theater was also designed with a comparatively small lobby, a lounge in the basement, and mezzanine-level offices.

Harris proposed the Music Box Theatre in 1919 specifically to host his productions with Berlin. The Shubert family gained an ownership stake shortly after the Music Box opened. In its first three years, the theater hosted the partners' Music Box Revue nearly exclusively; plays were not shown until 1925. Many of the Music Box's early productions were hits with several hundred performances, including multiple productions by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman in the 1930s. After Harris died in 1941, Berlin and the Shuberts shared ownership of the theater, and the Music Box largely showed dramas rather than musicals. Though the length of production runs declined in later years, the Music Box has remained in theatrical use since its opening. The Shuberts acquired the Berlin estate's ownership stake in 2007.

Site
The Music Box Theatre is on 239 West 45th Street, on the north sidewalk between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, near Times Square in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The square land lot covers . The theater has a frontage of  on 45th Street and a depth of about 100 feet.

The surrounding block of 45th Street is also known as George Abbott Way, and foot traffic on the street increases box-office totals on the theaters there. The Music Box shares the block with the Richard Rodgers Theatre and Imperial Theatre to the north, as well as the New York Marriott Marquis to the east. Other nearby buildings include the Paramount Hotel to the north; the Hotel Edison and Lunt-Fontanne Theatre to the northeast; One Astor Plaza to the southeast; the Gerald Schoenfeld, Booth, Shubert, and Broadhurst Theatres to the south; and the Majestic, Bernard B. Jacobs, and John Golden Theatres to the southwest.

Design
The Music Box Theatre was designed by C. Howard Crane in a Palladian-inspired style and was constructed from 1920 to 1921 for Irving Berlin and Sam H. Harris. The interior was decorated by Crane and William Baumgarten, with many Adam style details. The Longacre Engineering and Construction Company built the theater, with M. X. C. Weinberger as consulting engineer. Numerous other contractors were involved in the theater's development. The Music Box is operated by the Shubert Organization.

Facade 

The facade is made of limestone. It is symmetrically arranged, though the theater is shorter than its width. For the design of the facade, Crane drew from both Palladian and neo-Georgian motifs. The facade's largest feature is a double-height central colonnade at the second and third floors. According to theatrical historian Ken Bloom, the facade design was inspired by that of the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.

The easternmost side on 45th Street includes four pairs of glass and bronze doors leading to the ticket lobby. There are bronze sign boards on either side, and the entrance is topped by a marquee. Just west of the ticket-lobby entrance is a single doorway. The center of the ground story includes three pairs of glass and bronze doors from the auditorium. There are wood-and-glass sign boards on either side of the central doors, with colonettes on either side and sheet metal-wood pediments above them. A bronze fire-escape gate, accessed by two granite steps, and two wide sign boards are to the west of the center doors. The westernmost part of the facade contains a double door, a narrow sign board, and a single door. These doors, adjacent to the Imperial Theatre's entrance, constitute the stage doors. Above the ground floor is a horizontal band course with motifs of swags, urns, and vertical bars.

At the second and third floors is a colonnade between a pair of outer bays. The colonnade has four fluted columns, which are topped by Corinthian-style decorative capitals. The auditorium facade is slightly recessed behind the colonnade, creating a gallery, which is shielded decorative iron railings between the columns. The recessed gallery contains the auditorium's fire escape, with stairs leading down to ground level. There are also three double doorways with stone surrounds, which exit onto the gallery. Above each doorway is a frieze with urns and swags; there is a triangular pediment in the outer doorways and scrolled pediment in the center doorway. A pair of pilasters flanks each of the outer bays, with Corinthian capitals atop each pilaster. The second-floor window of each outer bay is a Palladian window, which contains sash window panes. The tympanum is divided into three sections, with an arched tympanum above the center section. The third story has a rectangular sash window with a molded frame. A vertical sign hangs from the easternmost bay on the upper stories.

The top of the facade has a frieze with rosette motifs, as well as a cornice with dentils and modillions. Above the facade is a sloping slate roof with several projecting dormers for windows. There is also a roof balustrade with cast-iron and wrought-iron railings.

Auditorium 

The auditorium has an orchestra level, one balcony, boxes, and a stage behind the proscenium arch. The auditorium is wider than its depth, and the space is designed with plaster decorations in high relief. According to the Shubert Organization, the auditorium has 1,025 seats; meanwhile, The Broadway League cites a capacity of 1,009 seats and Playbill cites 984 seats. The discrepancy arises from the fact that there are 1,009 physical seats and 16 standing-only spots. The physical seats are divided into 538 seats in the orchestra, 455 at the balcony, and 16 in the boxes. The orchestra seating includes 35 seats in the orchestra pit at the front of the stage. The original color scheme was ivory and dark green. The carpets and curtain were designed in a coral color.

Seating areas
The rear (east) end of the orchestra contains a shallow promenade, and the orchestra level is raked. The rear wall of the promenade (corresponding with the orchestra's aisles) has doorways with Corinthian-style piers, above which is an entablature in the Adam style. The north end of the promenade has a stair that rises to the balcony's foyer, as well as a double stair that leads down to a basement lounge. Both stairs have Adam-style railings. The orchestra and its promenade contain plasterwork panels on the walls. A standing rail is placed at the rear of the orchestra. No boxes were installed at orchestra level per Harris and Berlin's request.

The balcony level is raked and contains plasterwork panels on the walls. An Adam-style entablature runs above the top of the balcony wall, wrapping around to the tops of the boxes and proscenium. The balcony front curves outward and has vine and flower motifs, as well as medallions depicting female characters. Modern light boxes are in front of the balcony, and a technical booth is at the rear. The balcony's soffit, or underside, is divided into panels that contain plaster medallions with light fixtures, as well as air-conditioning vents. The auditorium was originally lit by five-armed sconces on the walls, which were replaced in the 1960s with imitation brass sconces. The original sconces were described in American Architect and Architecture as "Dutch brass with amber crystals".

On either side of the proscenium is an archway with a single box at the balcony level. The boxes were described in American Architect as having "a very decided decorative charm to the motive of the proscenium treatment". Each box is semicircular and is cantilevered from the wall; they are accessed from stair halls leading from the orchestra. The boxes' archways are supported by six Corinthian columns, three on each side, and are additionally flanked by paired Corinthian pilasters. Within each archway, the two center columns flank mirrored panels, which in turn are topped by broken pediments with urns. The fronts of the boxes contain Adam-style metal railings, originally ornamented in silver-gray. An entablature rises above the box seats, topped by a half-dome with a pastoral mural. These murals depict classical ruins. The half-domes are flanked by spandrels with decorations of eagles spreading their wings.

Other design features
Next to the boxes is a flat proscenium arch. The archway is flanked by fluted columns and pilasters in the Corinthian style. The top of the archways contains an entablature with Adam-style decorations of urns, vines, fans, and reeds. The proscenium measures about  high and  wide. Due to a lack of space backstage, a counterweight system was installed to lift sets and other objects onto the stage. The ceiling contains Adam-style moldings and friezes, which divide it into sections. There are also air-conditioning vents in the ceiling, and four chandeliers originally hung from it. Above the front of the balcony is a wide circular medallion. The rear of the ceiling contains a cove that curves downward onto the wall, supported by modillions at the entablature of the wall.

Other interior spaces 
The Music Box's rear promenade is accessed directly from the lobby, which measures  wide and  long. The lobby was decorated as a simple space, with pink marble baseboards, marble walls, and a plaster cornice. The cornice was decorated with neo-Georgian ornaments. A bronze box-office booth was placed in the lobby. The lobby has a box office because the theater had no dedicated box office when it opened. The floor was made of alternating gray and pink marble tiles. The lobby was separated from the auditorium itself by draped partitions, which removed the drafts that typically occurred behind the last row of seats.

At the balcony level is a mezzanine. This level contained Berlin's studio, as well as ladies' retiring rooms, telephone rooms, and managers' offices. Berlin's studio was designed like an attic, with exposed ceiling rafters, as well as wainscoted walls and a stone fireplace mantel.

Below the auditorium is a basement lounge. Its lavish design contrasted with the lounges of other Broadway theaters, which generally received little attention. Architecture and Building magazine described the lounge as being in the Queen Anne style, "developed more as if in a dwelling than in a club or public place". The staircase to the basement lounge is made of marble and contains an intermediate landing. A tapestry is mounted on the stair landing. The tapestry depicts a reclining figure of a nude woman next to a waterfall. A mirrored panel was hung on the lounge's wall, opposite the tapestry. Siena marble fireplace mantels, with mirrors above them, were placed at each end of the lounge. The basement also has the theater's restrooms.

History
Times Square became the epicenter for large-scale theater productions between 1900 and the Great Depression. 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. Meanwhile, Sam H. Harris was a producer and Irving Berlin was a songwriter. Prior to the development of the Music Box Theatre, Harris had partnered with George Cohan in the development of several theaters and productions in the 1900s and 1910s.

Development and early years

Venue for revues 
According to one account, the name for the Music Box Theatre arose from a conversation between Sam H. Harris and Irving Berlin in 1919. Harris had suggested building a theater, to which Berlin suggested the name "Music Box". Harris liked the name and suggested that Berlin could write a song for the new theater. In March 1920, Harris and Berlin bought the properties at 239 to 245 West 45th Street from L. and A. Pincus and M. L. Goldstone. They then announced plans to build the Music Box Theatre on the site. By that May, Crane had prepared plans for the theater. Harris planned to stage twice-yearly revues, and he subsequently ended his long-running partnership with George M. Cohan. Hassard Short was named as the first general stage director, spending over $240,000 on the first show. The Music Box ultimately cost more than $1 million, $400,000 for the building itself and $600,000 for the land; the theater overran its original budget by about $300,000. The Music Box was one of the only Broadway theaters to be built for specific producers' work.

The Music Box Theatre opened on September 22, 1921, with performances of Music Box Revue. The new theater was praised by both architectural and theatrical critics, and several architectural publications printed pictures of the theater. These included the American Architect and the Architectural Review, which called the theater's design "remarkable" both in design and layout. The New-York Tribune called the facade "singularly successful in its expression of the interior", while Architecture and Building said the "delicacy of domestic architecture" was fitting for the Music Box's design. Among theatrical critics, Jack Lait referred to the Music Box as the "daintiest theatre in America" in Variety magazine. Other reviewers said the theater was "unparalleled" in design and had "dignified architectural decorations" in contrast to other theaters. The comedian Sam Bernard said simply, "It stinks from class." In his autobiography, producer Moss Hart said that the Music Box was "everybody's dream of a theatre", enhancing the quality of the productions staged there.

Film executive Joseph M. Schenck originally was a partner in the Music Box Theatre with Berlin and Harris, though he transferred his stake to the Shubert brothers not long afterward. For the first three years of its operation, the Music Box exclusively hosted the Music Box Revue. The inaugural edition in 1921 starred Bernard and Berlin. Three subsequent editions of the Music Box Revue were hosted in as many years, and each subsequent edition gradually declined in quality. Among the performers who appeared multiple times were the Brox Sisters, Clark and McCullough, Florence Moore, Grace Moore, Joseph Santley, and Ivy Sawyer. One notable performance was the 1924 edition, which featured Fanny Brice of the Ziegfeld Follies. Earl Carroll's Vanities was also staged in 1924, becoming the second production to be presented at the Music Box. Its producer, Earl Carroll, was briefly jailed in November 1924 after showing "obscene" photos outside the Music Box.

1920s and 1930s hit plays 
The comedy The Cradle Snatchers, with Humphrey Bogart, was the first play to be staged at the Music Box, opening in 1925. With close to 500 performances, it was a hit. More generally, of the productions staged in the Music Box in its first decade, only two flops with less than 100 performances were staged, both of which ran immediately after The Cradle Snatchers closed. The first was Gentle Grafters in October 1926, while the second was Mozart that November. This was followed by the comedy Chicago, which premiered in late 1926 with Francine Larrimore and Charles Bickford, and a run of the melodrama The Spider in 1927, which transferred from a neighboring theater. By the end of 1927, Hassard Short had given up his stake in managing the Music Box. The play Paris Bound also premiered in 1927, followed the next year by the similarly named Paris with Irène Bordoni. The last show in the 1920s was The Little Show, which premiered in 1929.

The Music Box staged the French play Topaze with Frank Morgan in 1930, followed by the comedy The Third Little Show with Ernest Truex and Beatrice Lillie in 1931. The theater largely hosted works by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, produced either individually or in partnership, during the 1930s. Immediately following Topaze was Hart and Kaufman's first-ever collaboration, Once in a Lifetime, which premiered in late 1930. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind collaborated in 1931 for Of Thee I Sing, the first Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, and Kaufman joined Edna Ferber the next year to produce Dinner at Eight, which ran 232 performances. The next year, Berlin and Hart staged the revue As Thousands Cheer, which with 400 performances was lengthy for a Great Depression-era musical. Hart and Kaufman again partnered in 1934 for the play Merrily We Roll Along.

Five plays were performed at the Music Box in 1935. These were Rain, Ceiling Zero, If This Be Treason, a theatrical version of Pride and Prejudice, and finally Kaufman and Katharine Dayton's collaboration First Lady. Kaufman and Ferber collaborated again in the 1936 production Stage Door. This was followed the next year by a short run of Young Madam Conti with Constance Cummings, as well as a Kaufman-directed adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men. Two Hart and Kaufman productions were staged in 1938: a transfer of I'd Rather Be Right and the original Sing Out the News. The productions in 1939 began with the Noël Coward revue Set to Music, following which was From Vienna, produced by the Refugee Artists Group. The last hit of the 1930s was Hart and Kaufman's The Man Who Came to Dinner, which had 739 performances through 1941. Irving Berlin subsequently recalled that he and Harris had almost lost control of the otherwise financially-successful Music Box Theatre during the Depression. In spite of this, all but three shows had at least 100 performances in the Music Box's first 25 years.

1940s to 1970s 

The Music Box Theater underwent several changes in operation during the 1940s. Sam Harris died in July 1941, and his ownership stake in the theater went to his widow Kathleen Marin, pursuant to his will. Additionally, independent producers began to lease the Music Box. The theater also pivoted away from hosting revues and musicals because of its relatively low seating capacity; instead, it mainly hosted small dramas. The burlesque revue Star and Garter opened in 1942, eventually running 609 performances. This was followed in 1944 by a 713-performance run of the comedy I Remember Mama, which featured Marlon Brando in his Broadway debut. Another major production in the 1940s was Summer and Smoke, which premiered in 1948. The next year, the Music Box showed Lost in the Stars, which was the last musical staged at the Music Box until the 1970s.

The long-running comedy Affairs of State transferred to the Music Box from the Royale Theatre in 1950. The same year, Marin sold her one-third ownership stake in the Music Box Theatre to Harris and the Shuberts. In 1952, the Music Box staged a transfer of the hit The Male Animal. The playwright William Inge had three highly successful plays during the 1950s, all of which had over 400 performances. First among these was Picnic, which opened in 1953. This was followed by Bus Stop in 1955 and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs in 1957. Besides Inge's productions, the Music Box hosted a transfer of The Solid Gold Cadillac in 1954, as well as Separate Tables in 1956. The decade ended with the 1959 plays Rashomon, featuring Claire Bloom and Rod Steiger, and Five Finger Exercise, featuring Brian Bedford and Jessica Tandy.

In 1961, the Music Box staged A Far Country, featuring Kim Stanley and Steven Hill. The next year saw the opening of the comedy The Beauty Part with Bert Lahr, which flopped during the city's newspaper strike despite critical acclaim. The Music Box staged a more successful production, Dear Me, the Sky Is Falling with Gertrude Berg, the next year. The theater's most successful play of the 1960s was the comedy Any Wednesday, which opened in 1964 and ran for 983 performances. The decade's other hits included Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, which opened in 1967, and There's a Girl in My Soup, which opened later that year.

The British play Sleuth opened in 1970, featuring Keith Baxter and Anthony Quayle; it became the theater's longest-running production with 1,222 performances. When the Music Box celebrated its 50th anniversary the next year, the theater was still largely successful. Berlin said at the time that he still held part-ownership in the Music Box for sentimental reasons. In 1974, the theater staged its first musical in 25 years: Rainbow Jones, which closed after its only performance. It was followed the same year by the comparatively more successful Absurd Person Singular. The Music Box staged a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1976, and it hosted a range of Stephen Sondheim songs in the musical Side by Side by Sondheim the next year. The theater's last production of the 1970s was Deathtrap, which opened in 1978. Deathtrap was ultimately transferred four years later and ran 1,793 total performances.

1980s and 1990s 

The Music Box had a major hit in the early 1980s with the religious drama Agnes of God, which premiered in 1982 and had 599 performances with Geraldine Page and Amanda Plummer. By contrast, the theater mostly hosted flops during the mid-1980s. The Music Box hosted a revival of Hay Fever in 1985, followed the next year by a revival of Loot, which was Alec Baldwin's first Broadway appearance. In 1987, the Music Box staged Sweet Sue with Mary Tyler Moore, as well as the Royal Shakespeare Company's hit production Les Liaisons Dangereuses. This was followed by several short-lived productions, including Mail and Spoils of War in 1988, as well as  Welcome to the Club in 1989. The decade ended with the hit A Few Good Men. Irving Berlin continued to co-own the theater until he died in 1989 at the age of 101; in his final years, Berlin would contact the Shuberts to ask them about the theater's receipts.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had started to consider protecting the Music Box as a landmark in 1982, with discussions continuing over the next several years. The LPC designated the Music Box's facade and interior as a landmark on December 8, 1987. This was part of the commission's wide-ranging effort in 1987 to grant landmark status to Broadway theaters. The New York City Board of Estimate ratified the designations in March 1988. The Shuberts, the Nederlanders, and Jujamcyn collectively sued the LPC in June 1988 to overturn the landmark designations of 22 theaters, including the Music Box, on the merit that the designations severely limited the extent to which the theaters could be modified. The lawsuit was escalated to the New York Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States, but these designations were ultimately upheld in 1992.

In the 1990s, the Music Box continued to have many relatively short runs. The solo play Lucifer's Child with Julie Harris played a limited engagement in April 1991, and Park Your Car in Harvard Yard opened the same year with Judith Ivey and Jason Robards. The next year, the Music Box staged A Small Family Business, which ran for a little over one month. A more successful production was Blood Brothers, opening in 1993 and running 893 performances over the next two years. In addition, a plaque commemorating Irving Berlin was installed at the Music Box in 1994. The musical Swinging on a Star opened in 1995. The next year, the Music Box staged the musical State Fair, the latter of which was the final Broadway show produced by David Merrick. Subsequently, Barrymore ran 238 performances in 1997, and The Diary of Anne Frank opened later that year, running through the next year with 221 performances. Finally, the Music Box staged Closer in 1999, with 173 performances.

2000s to present 

The Music Box's tendency for short production runs continued into the 2000s. A revival of the Shakespeare play Macbeth closed in June 2000 after 13 performances, and a more successful production came later that year with The Dinner Party, which ran 364 performances. The 19th-century drama Fortune's Fool was staged in 2002, as was short-lived comedy Amour. As part of a settlement with the United States Department of Justice in 2003, the Shuberts agreed to improve disabled access at their 16 landmarked Broadway theaters, including the Music Box. The Music Box hosted Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 2003 and Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance in 2004, as well as Antony Sher's solo Primo and the musical In My Life in 2005. These were followed in 2006 by Festen and The Vertical Hour. Meanwhile, the Shubert Organization continued to co-operate the theater with Berlin's estate. The unusual arrangement, which led to jokes that the Shuberts owned sixteen and a half theaters, continued until 2007, when the Berlin estate sold its interest to the Shuberts.

The Music Box's productions at the end of the 2000s included Deuce and The Farnsworth Invention in 2007; a transfer of the long-running August: Osage County from the Imperial Theatre in 2008; and Superior Donuts in 2009. This was followed by Lend Me a Tenor and La Bête in 2010; Jerusalem and Private Lives in 2011; and One Man, Two Guvnors and Dead Accounts in 2012. The play Pippin opened in 2013 and ran for two years. Further productions in the mid-2010s included The Heidi Chronicles and King Charles III in 2015, as well as Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed in 2016. The Music Box has housed the musical Dear Evan Hansen ever since the production opened in December 2016. The theater closed on March 12, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened on December 11, 2021, with performances of Dear Evan Hansen.

Notable productions

 1921–1924: Music Box Revue
 1924: Earl Carroll's Vanities
 1926: Chicago
 1928: Paris
 1929: The Little Show
 1930: Topaze
 1930: Once in a Lifetime
 1931: Of Thee I Sing
 1932: Dinner at Eight
 1933: As Thousands Cheer
 1934: Merrily We Roll Along
 1935: Rain
 1935: Ceiling Zero
 1935: If This Be Treason
 1935: Pride and Prejudice
 1935: First Lady
 1936: Stage Door
 1937: Of Mice and Men
 1938: I'd Rather Be Right
 1939: Set to Music
 1939: The Man Who Came to Dinner
 1941: The Land Is Bright
 1942: A Kiss for Cinderella
 1942: Star and Garter
 1944: Over 21
 1944: I Remember Mama
 1946: A Flag Is Born
 1948: The Linden Tree
 1948: Summer and Smoke
 1949: They Knew What They Wanted
 1949: Mrs. Gibbons' Boys
 1949: Lost in the Stars
 1950: Daphne Laureola
 1950: Affairs of State
 1952: Much Ado About Nothing
 1952: The Male Animal
 1953: Picnic
 1954: The Solid Gold Cadillac
 1955: Bus Stop
 1956: The Ponder Heart
 1956: Separate Tables
 1957: Miss Lonelyhearts
 1957: The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
 1959: Rashomon
 1959: Five Finger Exercise
 1961: A Far Country
 1961: Daughter of Silence
 1962: The Beauty Part
 1963: Semi-Detached
 1964: Any Wednesday
 1966: Wait Until Dark
 1967: The Homecoming
 1967: There's a Girl in My Soup
 1968: Lovers
 1968: Harkness Ballet
 1969: The Watering Place
 1970: Sleuth
 1973: Veronica's Room
 1974: Absurd Person Singular
 1976: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
 1976: Comedians
 1977: Side by Side by Sondheim
 1978: Deathtrap
 1982: Agnes of God
 1984: Open Admissions
 1985: The Octette Bridge Club
 1985: Hay Fever
 1986: Loot
 1987: Sweet Sue
 1987: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
 1989: Welcome to the Club
 1989: A Few Good Men
 1992: A Small Family Business
 1993: Blood Brothers
 1995: Swinging on a Star
 1996: State Fair
 1997: Barrymore
 1997: The Diary of Anne Frank
 1999: Closer
 1999: Amadeus
 2000: Macbeth
 2000: The Dinner Party
 2002: Fortune's Fool
 2002: Amour
 2003: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
 2005: In My Life
 2006: Festen
 2006: The Vertical Hour
 2007: Deuce
 2007: The Farnsworth Invention
 2008: August: Osage County
 2009: Superior Donuts
 2010: Lend Me a Tenor
 2010: La Bête
 2011: Jerusalem
 2011: Private Lives
 2012: One Man, Two Guvnors
 2012: Dead Accounts
 2013: Pippin
 2015: The Heidi Chronicles
 2015: King Charles III
 2016: Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
 2016: Dear Evan Hansen

Box office record

Dear Evan Hansen achieved the box office record for the Music Box Theatre. The production grossed $2,119,371 over the eight performances during the week ending December 31, 2017. The same production had also achieved a record earlier in the year, making that record the highest gross for a Broadway house that seats under 1,000.

See also

 List of Broadway theatres
 List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links

 
 
 Museum of the City of New York drawing of the Klaw, Imperial and Music Box Theatres

1921 establishments in New York City
Broadway theatres
Irving Berlin
New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan
New York City interior landmarks
Shubert Organization
Theater District, Manhattan
Theatres completed in 1921