Lyceum Theatre

The Shubert Organization calls the Lyceum Theatre Broadway’s oldest continually operating legitimate theatre. It opened November 2, 1903, commissioned by impresario Daniel Frohman and designed by Herts & Tallant in Beaux-Arts style. The COVID shutdown closed it from March 2020 until it reopened in October 2021. The facade was designated a New York City landmark in 1974; the lobby and auditorium interior followed in 1987.

The Lyceum’s defining feature for ticket-buyers is the combination of small scale and ornate room — 922 seats spread across an orchestra (409), a mezzanine (287), a balcony (210), and 16 box seats. That’s small by Broadway standards. Per the Shubert Organization’s access notes, the mezzanine is on the second level and the balcony on the third, up two and four flights of stairs from the orchestra, each climbing about two steps per row. In our view, the small scale keeps even the balcony closer to the stage than its height suggests, and the room is worth arriving early for; the Shubert Organization’s page notes the foyer’s two grand staircases and marble finished to approximate “the marble of Athens.”

The Shubert Organization operates the theatre, and the Shubert Archive occupies the apartment Daniel Frohman built for himself above the theatre.

Address: 149 W 45th Street, mid-block on a street already dense with Shubert houses (the Booth is nearby on 45th; the Majestic is a short walk south on 44th).