The Eugene O'Neill Theatre, previously the Forrest Theatre and the Coronet Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 230 West 49th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The theater was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and was constructed for the Shubert brothers. It opened in 1925 as part of a hotel and theater complex named after 19th-century tragedian Edwin Forrest. The modern theater, named in honor of American playwright Eugene O'Neill, has 1,108 seats across two levels and is operated by ATG Entertainment. The auditorium interior is a New York City designated landmark.
The facade was originally made of brick and terracotta to complement the neighboring hotel. The original facade was removed in a 1940s renovation and replaced with stucco; the modern theater is of painted limestone and contains a large iron balcony. The auditorium contains Adam-style detailing, a large balcony, and box seats within decorative arches. There is also a five-centered proscenium arch and a coved ceiling with medallions.
The Shuberts developed the Forrest Theatre after World War I as part of a theatrical complex around 48th and 49th Streets. When the Forrest Theatre opened on November 24, 1925, its first production was the musical Mayflowers. After a series of unsuccessful shows, the Shuberts lost the theater to foreclosure in 1934, upon which it hosted Tobacco Road, which became the longest-running production in Broadway history. Following a brief run as a broadcast studio in 1944, the theater was sold in 1945 to City Playhouse Theatres, which renovated the theater and renamed it the Coronet. The theater was sold in 1959 to Lester Osterman, who renamed it after Eugene O'Neill. The playwright Neil Simon acquired the theater in 1967, after which he staged several of his own works there. Jujamcyn Theaters took over operations in 1982 and restored it in 1994; Jujamcyn merged with ATG in 2023. The Eugene O'Neill has hosted the musical The Book of Mormon since 2011.
Site The Eugene O'Neill Theatre is on 230 West 49th Street, on the south sidewalk between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The rectangular land lot covers , with a frontage of on 49th Street and a depth of . The Eugene O'Neill shares the block with the Walter Kerr Theatre to the south and Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan to the east. Other nearby buildings include One Worldwide Plaza and St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church to the northwest, the Ambassador Theatre and the Brill Building to the northeast, the Morgan Stanley Building to the southeast, the Longacre Theatre and Ethel Barrymore Theatre to the south, and the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre to the southwest.
Design The Eugene O'Neill Theatre (previously the Forrest Theatre and the Coronet Theatre) was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and was constructed in 1925 for the Shubert brothers. It is part of a group of six theaters planned by the Shuberts after World War I, of which four were built. The theater was originally named in honor of actor Edwin Forrest (1806–1872) and was developed in tandem with the Forrest Hotel, also designed by Krapp. Since 1959, the theater has been named for playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953). The Eugene O'Neill is operated by Jujamcyn Theaters.
Facade The Forrest Theatre was originally designed with a facade of brick and terracotta, similar to the Forrest Hotel. At the time, including a theater and hotel in the same project was an uncommon arrangement in New York City. Krapp repeated the theater/hotel arrangement in the late 1920s when he designed the Hotel Lincoln (now Row NYC Hotel) and the Majestic, Masque (Golden), and Royale (Bernard B. Jacobs) theaters. Above the theater's entrance was a wrought-iron balcony on the second story. A three-story stage house adjoined the theater.
The facade was subsequently refaced in plain stucco, and the iron balcony outside the theater was doubled in height. The stucco facade dated to 1945, when the theater was renovated by Walker & Gillette. At the time, the facade was painted in bright colors to evoke the appearance of a closed performance venue in New Orleans. The iron balcony, as well as shutters over the windows, were designed to give this effect. The facade was renovated again in 1980, this time in beige limestone.
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 low relief. Playbill cites the theater as having 1,047 seats and The Broadway League cites 1,066 seats. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has been cited as having as many as 1,108 seats. As originally configured, the theater could accommodate 1,200 guests, making it suitable for musicals or plays.;
The theater was constructed with a steel skeleton frame, which at the time was still mostly used for office buildings and skyscrapers. The auditorium was originally decorated in red and gold, which was changed in 1945 to blue and gray. A paint scheme of purple and gold was added in a 1994 renovation. The auditorium is approached by an entrance lobby with a terrazzo floor and marble decorations. The lobby's plaster ceiling has moldings with acanthus motifs and medallions.
Seating areas The orchestra level is wheelchair-accessible via the main doors. The rear (east) end of the orchestra contains a shallow promenade, and the orchestra level is raked. The promenade is separated from the main orchestra seating by columns. Originally, the promenade connected directly to the bar of the adjacent Forrest Hotel (later the Time New York). The promenade's rear wall contains pilasters with fluting, between which are wainscoted wall sections. Above the promenade, the underside of the balcony is split into sections, divided by moldings with wave and guilloché motifs. The corners of the promenade have stairs that rise to the rear of the balcony. The stairs have decorated wrought iron railings. The orchestra contains plasterwork panels on the walls. Within the walls are doorways topped by friezes, as well as lighting sconces. There is an orchestra pit at the front of the stage.
The balcony level can only be accessed by steps. The balcony level is raked and is divided into front and rear sections by an aisle halfway across its depth. The crossover aisles are delineated by wrought iron railings. The side walls contain exit doors flanked by Adam-style pilasters. Above the doors are Adam-style latticework containing medallions with classical figures; these are topped by segmental arches with bands of foliate decoration. There are depictions of seated women above each of the arches' keystones. The rest of the balcony's side walls contain Adam-style panels with elliptical arches. The rear wall is divided into panels and contains lighting sconces. A paneled Adam-style frieze with lamps runs near the top of the balcony wall. The balcony front curves outward and has cameo panels and swag motifs. Modern light boxes are in front of the balcony, and a technical booth is at the rear. The balcony's underside contains molded bands, which divide the surface into panels with medallions and crystal light fixtures.
On either side of the proscenium is an elliptically-arched wall section with three smaller arches. The smaller arches correspond to three boxes on the balcony level, which step down nearer to the stage. The spandrels, above the corners of the elliptical arches, contain foliate decorations around motifs of shields. The elliptical arches contain a band with foliate and fruit decorations, bordered on either side by rope moldings. Adam-style latticework fills the space between the smaller arches and the large elliptical arch. The central arch has a foliate band and is wider than the arches to either side. The central box is separated from the other boxes by pilasters with spiral moldings. The fronts of the boxes contain cameo panels and swag motifs. Similar boxes formerly existed at the orchestra level but have been removed. According to writer William Morrison, the box sections' design is reminiscent of Spanish architecture.
Other design features
Next to the boxes is a five-centered proscenium arch. The arch contains a band with foliate and fruit decorations, bordered on either side by rope moldings. The spandrels above the proscenium arch's corners contain foliate decorations around motifs of shields. The stage originally contained a fireproof curtain, which was composed of a layer of asbestos between steel sheets. Krapp designed an electrically-powered system to move objects on the set.
On all sides of the auditorium, the wall curves onto the coved ceiling. The coved section of the ceiling contains Adam-style bands, which divide the ceiling into panels. Each of the coved panels has medallions that depict classical figures. The rest of the ceiling is surrounded by an outer band of rosettes and octagonal panels. At the center of the ceiling is a circular section, surrounded by an inner band with theatrical masks and swags. Cartouches connect the inner and outer bands of the ceiling. Five Adam-style chandeliers hang from the ceiling's corners.
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. The Shuberts originated from Syracuse, New York, and expanded downstate into New York City in the first decade of the 20th century. The brothers controlled a quarter of all plays and three-quarters of theatrical ticket sales in the U.S. by 1925. After World War I, the Shuberts contemplated the construction of six theaters along 48th and 49th Streets, just north of Times Square.; Of these, only four were built, and only three (the Ambassador, O'Neill, and Kerr) survive.
Development and early years
1920s The Shuberts announced plans for their six new theaters in September 1920. The brothers believed that the 49th Street site could be as profitable as theaters on 42nd Street, which historically was Times Square's legitimate theatrical hub. The Shubert brothers erected the Ambassador, Ritz (now Walter Kerr), and 49th Street Theatres from 1920 to 1921, but they paused their development of theaters on 48th and 49th Street for several years afterward. In November 1924, the Shuberts sold eight row houses at 224–238 West 49th Street for $2 million to Daniel Darrow, who planned to build a theater and a 15-story hotel on the site. The Shuberts leased back the theater for 21 years. Construction on the Forrest Theatre began in May 1925. Though the Forrest was technologically advanced and had an elaborate interior design, there was relatively little media coverage about the theater. This might have been in part because of the city's plethora of theaters: just before the Forrest opened, there were 192 legitimate theaters and 548 movie houses in New York City.
The Forrest opened on November 24, 1925, with the musical Mayflowers featuring Ivy Sawyer, Joseph Santley, and Nancy Carroll.; ; Mayflowers closed after 81 performances.; The Forrest's other productions in the mid-1920s were largely unsuccessful, with a succession of flops including The Matinee Girl, Mama Loves Papa, and Rainbow Rose in 1926. The first hit at the theater was Women Go on Forever with Mary Boland, James Cagney, and Osgood Perkins, which opened in 1927 and ran for 118 performances.; This was followed by what theatrical historians Louis Botto and Robert Viagas called "potboilers whose very titles denoted their doom": Bless You, Sister in 1927, as well as Mirrors, The Skull, The Common Sin, and The Squealer in 1928. In between all these flops, the husband-and-wife team of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn danced at the Forrest in 1929.
1930s and early 1940s