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Address | 227 West 42nd Street Manhattan, New York City United States |
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Coordinates | 40°45′24.6″N 73°59′17.0″W / 40.756833°N 73.988056°W |
Public transit | New York City Subway at Times Square–42nd Street and 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal |
Owner | City and State of New York (leased to New 42nd Street) |
Operator | Roundabout Theatre Company |
Type | Broadway |
Capacity | 740 |
Construction | |
Opened | October 2, 1918 |
Reopened | June 30, 2000 |
Architect | George Keister |
Website | |
www.roundabouttheatre.org |
The Todd Haimes Theatre (previously known as the American Airlines Theatre and originally the Selwyn Theatre) is a Broadway theater at 227 West 42nd Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Built in 1918, it was designed by George Keister and developed by brothers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, for whom the theater was originally named. The theater is owned by the city and state governments of New York and leased to New 42nd Street. It has 740 seats across two levels and is operated by Roundabout Theatre Company.
The Selwyn Theatre was designed in the Italian Renaissance style, with a brick-and-terracotta facade. The auditorium, which is on 43rd Street, had been accessed from the six-story Selwyn Building on 42nd Street, which collapsed at the end of 1997. The modern theater is accessed through the ten-story New 42nd Street Building, which has an illuminated steel-and-glass facade. The fan-shaped auditorium is designed in a blue-and-gold color scheme and has a shallow balcony, box seats, and murals. There are lounges for Roundabout subscribers above the auditorium and technical spaces in the basement. In addition, the New 42nd Street Building contains offices, rehearsal rooms, and an off-Broadway theater above the lobby.
The theater opened on October 2, 1918, with Jane Cowl's Information Please, and it initially hosted legitimate musical and dramatic productions. Arch Selwyn presented revues such as Wake Up and Dream (1929) and Three's a Crowd (1930). After Arch Selwyn's bankruptcy in 1934, the Selwyn became a cinema; the Brandt family took over the theater in 1937 and operated it for the next five decades. The Selwyn largely showed movies, except in 1949–1950, when legitimate plays alternated with film screenings. There were several proposals to redevelop theaters along 42nd Street in the 1980s. New 42nd Street took over the Selwyn and several neighboring theaters in 1990, leasing the Selwyn to the Roundabout Theatre Company in 1997. Following the collapse of the Selwyn Building, the theater was redesigned as part of the New 42nd Street Building. The theater reopened on June 30, 2000, after being renamed for American Airlines, which had bought the theater's naming rights. In June 2023, Roundabout announced that the theater would be renamed after Roundabout's artistic director, Todd Haimes, who had died in April of that year.