Theater in New York City

New York City is one of the most important centers for theatrical activity in the world. The famous Broadway is a street in New York City and an area with many theaters, in Manhattan. The name is also used as a metonym for the theatrical activity in New York City. There are also Off-Broadway options, usually produced on low budgets.

Theater is a natural form of human expression. Early Native American culture was rich with ceremonies, rituals and storytelling. The earliest documented professional theatrical performance in New York City took place on December 6, 1732, when a group of British actors performed in a building near the junction of Maiden Lane and Pearl Street, known as The Playhouse. Hamlet was presented for the first time in the United States in a temporary theater built by David Douglass (1720-1786), in 1761, on Beekman Street and Theatre Ally, later occupied by the Clinton Hall.

In the early 19th century, businesses, stores, hotels, and places of amusement had clustered together in the vicinity of Lower Broadway. By the 1830s, more theaters were built in New York than in any other city in the United States. In the late 19th century, Broadway was the major theatrical center of the United States. New York was already producing high-quality plays and musicals. At the time, theaters moved northward on Manhattan Island, following the trend of the residential part of the city, until they reached Long Acre Square in the 1890s. The subway and the Times Building opened in 1904, then Long Acre Square became Times Square.

In the first two decades of the 20th century more than 43 theaters were built around Broadway in Midtown Manhattan (see a map in 1906). This area known as the Theater District encompasses the largest concentration of playhouses in the world. They have contributed significantly to the history and development of theater in the United States and worldwide.

The Depression in the 1930s caused a shrinkage in theater activity. Playhouses were demolished, converted to motion picture houses, and later to radio and television studios. No new Broadway playhouses were constructed until the 1960s, when theatrical activity recovered.

There are also venues like the Madison Square Garden for mega events, the Lincoln Center, a complex of buildings which houses performing arts organizations, the Carnegie Hall, a historic concert hall in Midtown Manhattan, the Rockefeller Center, the Shed, a cultural center in the Hudson Yards, and other large spaces for performing arts.