Where to sit
Chicago seating chart — Ambassador Theatre
A plain-language read of the Ambassador Theatre for Chicago. It gives facts from the sources we could read; any view of our own is labelled as ours.
About the venue
- Theatre
- Ambassador Theatre
- Address
- 219 W 49th St, New York, NY 10019
- Neighborhood
- Theater District
- Capacity
- 1,095 seats
- Operator
- Shubert Organization
Home of Chicago since 2003.
The short version
The Ambassador opened in 1921, one of four theatres the Shuberts built on 48th and 49th Streets in their post-World War I expansion. Its lot was relatively small, so the auditorium was set diagonally on it, which gave the room its hexagonal shape and left the stage short of wing space (the Shubert Organization's page). Architect Herbert J. Krapp's Adam-style plasterwork decorates the walls, ceiling, boxes, doorways and arches. Chicago moved here from the Shubert Theatre in 2003. Shubert's figures put 573 of the 1,095 seats in the orchestra and 514 on one mezzanine level, two flights up (38 steps), split into a front mezzanine (264) and a rear mezzanine (250), with 8 box seats. In our view, centre orchestra is the seat to want for the dancing, the first rows of the front mezzanine are worth pricing against it, and because the room is angled, a photo from a side seat tells you more than the flat seating chart.
Section by section
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Orchestra
573 seats, reached without steps; wheelchair seating is in the orchestra only (Shubert's access notes). In our view, centre orchestra is the seat to want for the dancing; at the ends of a row, look at a seat-view photo first, because the angled room is hard to judge from the chart.
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Front Mezzanine
264 seats on the second level, two flights up (38 steps), about two steps per row, entered from behind row E (Shubert's access notes). In our view, the first rows are worth pricing against centre orchestra.
-
Rear Mezzanine
250 seats on the same level, entered in front of row A (Shubert's access notes). In our view, the section to look at when price matters more than closeness.
New to Broadway seating? Here's a 5-minute guide to reading any Broadway seating chart.