Lyric Theatre, West 43rd Street NYC

The Lyric Theatre (formerly the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, the Hilton Theatre, and the Foxwoods Theatre) is located at 214 West 43rd Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan. The theater has 1,622 seats on three levels. It opened in 1998 and is operated by ATG Entertainment. The theater building is owned by the City and state governments of New York and was developed by New 42nd Street, a not-for-profit organization which also leased the Todd Haimes Theatre.

The original Lyric Theatre opened on October 12, 1903 and was managed by the Shubert Brothers. It became a movie house in 1932 until it closed in 1992.

The present theater was designed by Richard Lewis Blinder of Beyer Blinder Belle, in collaboration with Peter Kofman, for Garth Drabinsky and his company Livent. The Lyric Theatre was built using parts of two former theaters on the site: the Apollo Theatre, built in 1920 to a design by Eugene De Rosa, and the old Lyric Theatre designed by Victor Hugo Koehler. The current theater retains the original Lyric façade on 43rd Street, as well as a smaller arched façade on 42nd Street. The auditorium and stage house are placed within an entirely new structure covered with concrete and brick panels.

The old Lyric and Apollo theaters had been proposed for redevelopment since the 1970s, and New 42nd Street took over the theaters in 1990. Livent leased the theaters in 1995, razing them to make way for an 1,821-seat facility named after sponsor Ford Motor Company.

The Ford Center's first performance was on December 26, 1997, when previews opened for the musical version of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. The musical officially opened on January 26, 1998 and ran for 861 performances until 2000. Livent filed for bankruptcy in late 1998, and the theater subsequently passed to SFX Entertainment and then Clear Channel Entertainment, which renamed it for sponsor Hilton Hotels & Resorts in 2005. The venue was renamed after Foxwoods Resort Casino in 2010 as part of a partnership with Live Nation. ATG acquired the theater in 2013 and renamed it the Lyric in 2014. The Lyric's capacity was reduced in a 2017 renovation because of complaints about the theater's excessive size, which had caused several of the theater's productions to lose money. The play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opened on April 22, 2018.