The Broadway Theatre stands at 1681 Broadway, at the southwest corner of Broadway and 53rd Street, and is one of the few active Broadway theaters actually on Broadway. Eugene De Rosa designed it for B. S. Moss, and it opened on 25 December 1924 as the Colony Theatre, showing films. It cost 2 million dollars.
The original exterior was Italian Renaissance, in brick and terracotta. The balcony rests on a girder weighing 40 short tons, so the auditorium has no columns. Today the facade is polished granite, part of the 1675 Broadway office building completed in 1990, which is cantilevered 45 feet (14 meters) over the theater.
It was reopened as the Broadway Theatre on 8 December 1930. The Shubert family bought it in 1940, and it seats about 1,763. Long runs have included Fiddler on the Roof, Evita, Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, which ran for 4,095 performances.
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