Music Box Theatre

Per the Shubert Organization’s page, producer Sam Harris offered to find a theatre if Irving Berlin would write a revue, and the Music Box was built to house Berlin’s Music Box Revue, which opened it in September 1921. In our view, that origin makes it one of Broadway’s most personal venues. Charles Howard Crane, with E. George Kiehler, designed it in the neo-Georgian style; the same page says it was built more like a dignified manor or country home than a typical playhouse. After Harris died in 1941, Berlin and the Shuberts became equal partners in the house; the Berlin share was sold to Shubert in 2007.

The 1,009-seat interior is on the smaller side for Broadway. The Shubert Organization’s figures put 538 seats in the orchestra and 455 on one mezzanine level, two flights up (38 steps), with 16 box seats, and its page credits the house with “dainty, jewel-like qualities”. In our view, the modest size keeps most seats reasonably close to the stage, which makes the mezzanine worth pricing against the orchestra.

Operated by the Shubert Organization, the Music Box sits on the same stretch of West 45th Street as the Booth and the Golden.