#Bijou theatre nyc tv

(I think they wouldn’t give one to me or my friends because you had to be accompanied by someone over 18.)Īlso, I believe one of the live shows to appear there was a show called “Mummenschanz” (which sounds German, but I asked a German speaking friend about it, and he said the name didn’t mean anything to him).

#Bijou theatre nyc tv

And, if I remember correctly, one of the wierd things about it was that its facade didn’t even look like a theater facade.īy the way, I think sometime during the early 1960s, it was used for a bit as some kind of TV facility - to preview video tapes (?) of new TV shows? If I remember correctly, there used to be these guys (college students?) who would be handing out these free tickets for TV shows, and some of them would be for this theater. I think they also remodeled the outside a bit, too (and painted the whole front white?). The fact that the Astor’s remodeling cut into the original auditorium explains a lot. (Actually, in some ways it reminded me of the Guild in Rockefeller Center, another small theater that seemed “mysterious” to me.) I’ve seen it mentioned in books about the history of theaters (like Mary Henderson’s) but the theater they described didn’t seem to be the same theater that I remember, which appeared from the outside (never went inside) to be wierdly tiny for a theater in the Times Sq.

I use to go to the theater district a lot in the early 1960s (and vaguely remember it as a theater with Japanese films), but I could never quite figure this theater out. Thanks Bryan for the wonderful little history of this “mystery” theater. I think the Shubert Theatre Organization (the owner of the most theaters in the area, although I’m not sure if they own either the Eugene O'Neil or Broadway) more recently went through an enlightened renovation policy, where they actually hired interior decorators to redo their theaters (including the auditoriums) right. (Please don’t hold me to all of this, since I’m talking about ages ago - but these were my impressions.) If I remember the correctly, the Broadway had actually been renovated in the late 1950s early 1960s, and even so the interior of the auditorium was drab (although the lobby areas were a bit more glamorous).

Two theaters that particularly come to mind are the Eugene O'Neil (where I saw “She Loves Me”) and the Broadway (“My Fair Lady,” “Purlie,” and the “Wiz”), both of which I vaguely remember as being disappointly very drab.

It was kind of reminiscent to me of the look of the hallway in a run down Bronx apartment house (I’m from the Bronx), but minus the circular florescent light fixtures.

I think one reason for this is that a lot of theater owners seemed to paint over all the decorative low-relief plaster work - with some kind of non-descript grey, or light blue paint. There was a time when it seemed most legit Broadway houses had, like you say, a very faded beauty - even without peeling paint, etc. Re: faded beauty of Broadway area theaters Caro: Thanks for the confirmation on “Mummenschanz,” especially the specific date.