Garden Theatre Explained

Garden Theatre
Address:55–61 Madison Avenue. and 22–32 E. 27th Street
City:New York City, New York
Country:United States
Coordinates:40.743°N -73.986°W
Architect:McKim, Mead & White
Owner:Madison Square Garden Company
Operator:T. Henry French, A.M. Palmer
Charles Frohman, Gustav Amberg,
William R. Coleman, Emanuel Reicher, Maurice Schwartz, others
Capacity:1,200, +400 standees
Type:Broadway (until ~1910)
Opened:September 27, 1890
Yearsactive:1890–1925
Closed:1925
Demolished:1925
Othernames:Gilmore's Garden (~1870)
Madison Square Garden (1880)
Garden Theatre (1890)

The Garden Theatre was a major theater on Madison Avenue and 27th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The theatre opened on September 27, 1890, and closed in 1925.[1] Part of the second Madison Square Garden complex, the theatre presented Broadway plays for two decades and then, as high-end theatres moved uptown to the Times Square area, became a facility for German and Yiddish theatre, motion pictures, lectures, and meetings of trade and political groups.

The Garden Theatre has been erroneously referred to as the Madison Square Garden Theatre. It was not related to a theater three blocks south (at Madison Avenue and 24th Street) that was called the Madison Square Theatre from 1879 to 1891 and later called Hoyt's Theatre.

Building

The Garden Theatre was architecturally and structurally part of, but managed separately from, the Madison Square Garden (1890) complex designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, that replaced the original Madison Square Garden (1879) at the same site. Unlike most theatres of the day, patrons entered from street level and it was described as "fireproof",[2] in an era when theatre fires were not uncommon. The auditorium had eight boxes, a gallery and a balcony, with 1,200 seats plus room for 400 standees. The building was 117 feet long and 70 feet wide, and the stage was 39 feet deep and 70 feet wide.[3]

The Garden was the only New York theatre McKim, Mead & White designed, but they "provided an elegant interior...They introduced Beaux Arts classicism to playhouse design, inaugurating a new formalism and standard of decor that would influence theatre architecture for the next four decades. The coffered sounding board, the swag and lattice box fronts and proscenium are especially noteworthy."[4] The interior was decorated "in the style of Louis XVI", with views of Versailles on the main curtain.[5]

Besides the large arena itself, the Garden Theatre was one of three separately operated attractions in the Madison Square Garden complex, and the only one that met with any business success. The others were a concert hall and a restaurant. The theatre and the rest of the complex were razed in May 1925, and were replaced on the site by the New York Life Building.

Broadway theatre

The Garden Theatre presented a wide variety of dramas, musical comedies, and operas, both new plays and revivals, from 1890 to the approximately 1910, by which time it was increasingly used for extended, often lower-cost runs of plays first presented at other theatres.

The theatre was managed by T. Henry French from its opening until October 1893 when A.M. Palmer took over. Three years later Charles Frohman became manager.[6]

In addition to productions ranging from one to over 100 performances, examples of which are below, in its heyday the theatre presented many repertory companies, with consistent casts offering rotating menus of plays, frequently for four-week engagements. Notable "rep companies" that appeared at the Garden:[7]

Examples of prominent actors and plays from this period are listed below.

Later years: German and Yiddish theatre and other notable events

By 1910 the Garden's location and its relative paucity of hit productions led it to be considered marginal in comparison to the rising "Broadway" theatres in the Times Square area.[8] For the theatre's last 15 years it was used for many purposes in addition to plays and operas, including motion picture exhibition, lectures, trade shows, political rallies and other civic meetings, and even church services. Most notably, a succession of German and Yiddish theatre groups presented plays at the theatre.

German theatrical manager and impresario Gustav Amberg took possession of the theatre early in 1911, moving his stock theatre company from the Irving Place Theatre. Amberg's "Neues Deutsches Theatre" presented Ernst Von Possart in Erekmann Chatrian's Freund (Friend) Fritz and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise, and also presented plays such as By the King's Command, Moliere's The Learned Women, Bjornstjerne Bjornson's Das Fallissement (The Failure), Adolf Wilbrandt's The Daughter of Fabricus, and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.[9]

John E. Kellerd played Hamlet for 102 performances in 1912–13, arguably[10] breaking the New York theatre record set by Edwin Booth's "100 Nights of Hamlet" at the Winter Garden in 1864–65. John Barrymore overlooked Kellerd's achievement and thought he had set a record with 101 consecutive performances in 1922–23 at the Booth Theatre; John Gielgud set (and still holds) the record in 1937 with 132 at the St. James Theatre.[11]

Later in 1913, new manager William R. Coleman bowed to the pressure of the new theatre economy by lowering prices in order to fight competition from movies,[12] intensifying the Garden's fall from the top echelon of New York theatres.

German actor-manager Emanuel Reicher leased the theatre in 1915 to run plays in the style of his Modern Stage group, along with a new group called the "American People's Theatre" that provided reduced-price tickets to working-class people who could not otherwise afford them. His daughter Hedwiga Reicher was part of his stock company.[13] Reicher's production of Gerhart Hauptmann's The Weavers ran for 87 performances beginning in December 1915.[14]

Lina Coen conducted Carmen at the Garden Theatre in February 1917, reportedly becoming the first woman to conduct an opera in New York City.[15]

In April 1917, the Garden was the first major theatre to present an all-African American cast in a performance that "portrayed African American life seriously and sympathetically."[16] The three one-act plays, presented under the general title Plays for a Negro Theater, were Simon the Cyrenian, The Rider of Dreams, and Granny Maumee. They were written by Ridgely Torrence and directed ("staged", in the parlance of the day) by Robert E. Jones.[17]

In 1919 the Yiddish Art Theatre came to the Garden Theatre, first featuring and managed by Reicher and then by Maurice Schwartz, performing works by playwrights including Leonid Andreyev, S. Ansky, Sholem Aleichem, Maxim Gorky, Gerhart Hauptmann, Peretz Hirschbein, David Pinski, Arthur Schnitzler, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. The Yiddish Art Theatre remained, on and off, for six years, frequently dropping the name "Garden" entirely from newspaper ads. In 1925, in the face of plans to tear down the Madison Square Garden complex, the Yiddish Art Theatre moved temporarily to the Nora Bayes Theatre and then to their own newly constructed theatre at Second Ave. and 12th St.[18]

When the 1924 Democratic National Convention was held at Madison Square Garden, the Garden Theatre became a delegate's lounge area. Seats were covered with a false floor and Macy's department store donated oriental rugs, stuffed chairs and couches.[19] And ashtrays—smoking was banned in the big arena but allowed in "Macy's Convention Club", so the theatre became the "smoke-filled room" for the record 103-ballot convention.[20]

Actors

These are among the actors who performed in three or more plays at the Garden Theatre (mainly in the theatre's top years, 1890–1910) and were, or later became, widely known for their work in theatre or in motion pictures. (List excludes those named above.)[21]

Plays, playwrights, opening nights

Following are examples of plays that appeared at the Garden Theatre for at least 48 performances, or six weeks, between 1890 and the mid-1910s. Does not include dozens of benefits, concerts, lectures, amateur and student productions, short-stay touring performances, and revivals of these plays in subsequent months. (WP=World premiere, AP=American premiere.)[22]

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. Brown, History of the New York Stage, v.III, p. 518.
  2. "The Garden Theatre: Private Inspection", New York Times, September 21, 1890, p. 2.
  3. King, King's Handbook, p. 545.
  4. Morrison, Broadway Theatres: History and Architecture.
  5. "The Garden Theatre: Private Inspection", New York Times, September 21, 1890, p. 2.
  6. Brown, History of the New York Stage v.III, pp. 524, 526.
  7. Brown, History of the New York Stage, v.III, pp. 518–531.
  8. "Madison Square Garden Sold", New York Times, April 9, 1911, p. 1.
  9. "Amberg Has Garden Theatre", New York Times, January 7, 1911, p. 9. "Concert in Garden Theatre", New York Times; January 16, 1911, p. 11.
  10. Some disclaim Kellerd's record because he played other parts in repertory during the run.
  11. "Gielgud is Cheered", New York Times, January 31, 1937, p. 48. Crowther, "Checking on the Bard", New York Times, January 10, 1937, p. 155.
  12. "Plan to Give Dollar Plays on Broadway", New York Times, October 6, 1913, p. 7. "Sex Plays at 10, 20, 30 cents", New York Times, October 17, 1913, p. 11.
  13. "Reicher to Found a People's Theatre", New York Times, September 8, 1915, p. 13. "Emanuel Reicher Is Dead", New York Times, May 17, 1924, p. 15.
  14. Mantle and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1909–1919, p. 565.
  15. "Woman Wields The Baton", New York Times, February 8, 1917, p. 10.
  16. Curtis, The First Black Actors, p. 2.
  17. "Three Negro Plays Played By Negroes", New York Times, p. 11.
  18. Woollcott, "The Play: Hauptmann in Madison Square", New York Times, October 17, 1919, p. 15. "Jewish Art Theatre to Have New Home", New York Times, August 19, 1925, p. 14.
  19. "Transfigured Hall Awaits Convention", New York Times, June 20, 1924, p. 3. "600 Phone Lines Link Convention", New York Times, June 22, 1924, p. 7.
  20. The term "smoke-filled room" is widely reported to have been coined in descriptions of the 1920 Republican convention. For example, Heine's "The First Smoke-Filled Room", New York Magazine, July 19, 1976, p. 68, cites William Safire's The New Language of Politics, (New York: Collier Books), 1972.
  21. Brown, History of the New York Stage v.III, pp. 518–531. Chapman and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1894–1899, pp. 83–260. Mantle and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1899–1909, pp. 346–584. Mantle and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1909–1919, pp. 395–658.
  22. "The Garden Theatre", New York Times, September 28, 1890, p. 5. Brown, History of the New York Stage v.III, pp. 518–531. Chapman and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1894–1899, pp. 83–260. Mantle and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1899–1909, pp. 346–584. Mantle and Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1909–1919, pp. 395–658.

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