Music Box Theatre, West 45th Street, New York City

The Music Box Theatre is a Broadway theater at 239 West 45th Street in New York City. It opened in 1921 and now is operated by the Shubert Organization. It has 1,025 seats across two levels. Both the façade and the auditorium interior were designated New York City landmarks in 1987.

This Theatre was designed by architect Charles Howard Crane, in collaboration with E. George Kiehler, in a Palladian-inspired style and built for Irving Berlin and Sam H. Harris. By the end of 1919, theatrical producer Sam H. Harris made a proposal to his friend Irving Berlin: if the composer would create a musical revue, Harris would find a theatre for it. Berlin responded with The Music Box Revue and in 1920 the Music Box Theatre was built to house the show. The Shubert brothers gained an ownership stake shortly after the Music Box opened.

The Music Box Theater has a symmetrically-organized façade which is
wider than it is high. The ground floor is made of stone, with concrete
infill and patches, and is dominated by its doorways. Four pairs of original bronze and glass doors adorned with curvilinear motifs, lead into the ticket lobby. The auditorium contains Adam style detailing, a large balcony, and two outwardly curved box seats within ornate archways.
The comedy The Cradle Snatchers, with Humphrey Bogart, was the first play to be staged at the Music Box, opening in 1925, with close to 500 performances. After the death of Sam Harris in 1941 the Music Box was leased to independent producers on a show-by-show basis. The fifties were marked by an association between the Music Box and playwright William Inge, who supplied the theater with three hits: the Pulitzer Prize Winning Picnic (1953), Bus Stop (1954), and Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1958). During the 1960s the Music Box housed a number of dramas, including A Far Country (1961), the romantic comedy Any Wednesday (1964) and The Homecoming (1967).