Broadway History

Broadway the symbol

Broadway is the street in the Big Apple that has come to designate live theater entertainment and musicals across the world. Today the area, known to tourists and theater-goers, stretches from W.41st Street, where the Netherlander Theater is found, up to W. 53rd Street's Broadway Theater. Only four theaters are located physically on Broadway, the Marquis at 46th Street, the Palace at 47th Street, the Winter Garden at 50th Street and the Broadway at 53rd. All of the other bonafide houses are located west or east of this twelve block stretch.

Broadway the stars
By the 1830's America was exporting stars to Europe. The 1st notable Yankee actor to make a successful tour was Edwin Forrest, who at nineteen, had played Iago to Edmond Kean's Othello. He was hissed off the stage. Though the disruption of his tour was a personal feud with a British actor, its results were well made public in the american Press and his return to the american stage was received with populist fervor. This'personal feud' became an international incident and demonstration of class struggle in 1849, when the Brit actor in query was booked to perform at the Astor Place Opera House in the Big Apple. A riot ensued on the night of May tenth which was put down with troops and cannon.
Broadways first marquis.

In 1891, the first electrical marquis was lit on Broadway. 23rd Street. The Flatiron Building now occupies the site. By midway through the following decade, the street blazed with electric signs as each theater pronounced its shows and stars in white lights. By the turn of the 20th Century the street had a wholly different look, with as many as sixteen theaters on Broadway itself and many others found on the side streets or other avenues. Broadway was far more than an insignificant twelve blocks. It started at 13th Street and wound its way a mile and a half up the Avenue to 45th Street, ending in the heart of Long acre Square.



the 1st decade of the 20 th Century was both uninteresting and transformational in the history of our Broadway Musicals. The seeds of that alteration go back to 1882, and the development of The Madison Square Theater at 24th Street. The Mallory's, who had built the theater, had employed a young actor-manager from San Francisco together with two brothers from the lower Eastside to help manage the theater. David Belasco, who had the excellence of appearing on stage with another unknown kid, Maude Adams, in San Francisco in 1877, was shortly to become a playwright, theater owner and builder. The 2 siblings from the lower Eastside were, of course, Charles and Daniel Frohman. At the time, theatres were concentrated between Union Square and 24th Street.

For musicals , shows and pantomime in teesside check out centre stage

.