The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, originally named the Globe after Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, was built for Charles Dillingham, one of Broadway’s most successful producers of musical comedies.

His career spanned almost forty years and over 200 productions including Apple Blossoms, Fred and Adele Astaire’s first American musical. Best known for their Beaux-Arts buildings such as the New York Public Library, Carrère & Hastings designed this theater, the only one that survives. Dillingham wanted his theater to be luxurious for his patrons and efficient for his stars, and reflect his importance in the theater industry. It originally had a sliding roof—a large oval panel that opened when the weather permitted. Theatrical masks adorn the Beaux-Arts facade and the fan-shaped auditorium has excellent sight lines and acoustical properties. A victim of the Depression, the theater was turned into a movie house in 1932. In 1958, it reopened as a legitimate theater and was renamed the Lunt-Fontanne after Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the husband and wife acting team who also starred in the theater’s opening production of The Visit. Now under the ownership of the Nederlander Organization, the theater has been home to The Sound of Music, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid among many other stellar productions.