Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

The oddest feature of that theater that I recall as both a movie house and as a playhouse was the downward sloping, horizontally splayed beaux-arts cornucopias on each side of the proscenium, retained after the ‘58 renovation eliminated the second balcony. I haven’t been in that house since the '99 renovation, so I wonder what that recent job entailed. I wish there were a site like this for NYC live playhouses.

When I saw “My Favorite Spy” at the Globe in 1951, there were two balconies. During the transformation into the Lunt-Fontanne, the theater was rebuilt and the second balcony removed.

I went to see Sandy Duncan in “Peter Pan” here in the 1980’s (I had a seat in the balcony). If memory serves me right, the auditorium was painted a light shade of blue and I bleieve there were painted murals of cherubs and clouds on the ceiling. The auditorium struck me as being rather charming.

When I next went to see a show at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre around 2000 (“Titanic-The Musical”), the interior had been painted matt black and there was no decorative features at all. There was a crystal chandelier in the centre of the ceiling. All very disappointing.

There seems to be some confusion between Robert’s photo and Benjamins comment’s. The blue interior of the photo is what the theater was like when I was attending it and it was the dreariest of settings. Yet Benjamin extolls this design. Then claims the photo is of its recent redecoration and not very attractive.
But this is exactly what I remember from the 70’s to the early 90’s!
I don’t believe the theater is like this now(at least I hope not.)
So Benjamin exactly what period are you refering to?

I get the impression from various sources that when the Globe was transformed into the Lunt-Fontanne it was more than “just” redecorated. Although I could be wrong, it seems the theater was virtually gutted and rebuilt and, as can be seen from a quote later in this post, the interior design at the Lunt-Fontanne seems to have been pale-blue from the very beginning (although it may have been a different pale blue, and perhaps it might have been used more discriminatingly).

Of course everyone is entitled to their own taste, but when I first saw the interior of the Lunt-Fontanne for a 1962 (?) performance of the “Sound of Music” (orchestra level) I was enchanted. I thought the interior was magical, and a large part of its charm seemed to me to be due to the wonderful light blue color of the interior. (But then again, I was just a kid!) A year or two later I saw little “Little Me” (balcony) and felt the same way.

As I got to see more and more Broadway theaters, it seemed to me that the Lunt-Fontanne was way up in the top category in terms of beautiful interiors. (And, if I remember correctly, some drama critics like, perhaps, John Chapman of the “Daily News,” felt the same way.)

However, it should also be said that in those days the competition was not all that strong because most Broadway theaters seemed to suffer from indifference and neglect by their owners. For example, if I remember correctly, the ugliest Broadway theater interior in my mind was that of the Eugene O'Neill (last matinee of “She Loves Me”), where the entire interior, ornamentation and all, seemed to be painted over with a dull grey.

So I think even theatergoers who weren’t bowled over by the actual interior decoration of the Lunt-Fontanne might have appreciated the care, money and aspirations that the owner and the interior designer invested in the design — instead of just putting together a “schlock” design, at least they tried to do something special. And even ambitious “bad” taste is better than cheap, thoughtless or callous indifference.

Also, looking back, it’s seems somewhat noteworthy to me that the owner and designers tried to do a modern interpretation of an historical style rather than try to impose flashy, but poorly thought out conventional modernism — which was oftentimes done in those days with storefronts, and sometimes even entire office buildings. In fact, I think one of the the fun things about the design of the Lunt-Fontanne is to see how the designer used historical styles in an updated modern way.

(By the way, two other renovated theaters that I thought were among the most beautiful on Broadway for similar reasons were the St. James and, to a lesser extent, the Broadway [also listed on the Cinema Treasures website]. However I don’t think either of them got the same good “reviews” even at the time as the Lunt-Fontanne did.)

If I remember correctly, though, when I saw the Lunt-Fontanne again in the mid-1980s (“Peter Pan,” “Beatlemania” and revivals of “My Fair Lady” and “Hello Dolly”) I don’t think the interior impressed me quite as much. I don’t recall, however, if this was because my taste had changed or because the original Lunt-Fontanne design was not being maintained properly. (I do know, however, that the owners of the theater never bothered to take down an illuminated “Sound of Music” sign [late 1950s?] from the theater’s exterior until maybe the early 1990s?!)

Thanks RobertR for the link to a photo of the most recent redesign! Judging from the photo at least (and photos can be deceiving), my feeling is that the new interior is far less attractive than the original design — actually, it seems somewhat ugly. It’s as though the celestial powder blue walls were replaced by assertive, basement rec room formica “wood” paneling — and the magic is gone! (But, of course, in person I might have an entirely different feeling about it.)

Here’s some info about the Lunt-Fontanne from “New York, 1960” (pg. 442) by Robert A.M. Stern (the famous architect) et al.:

Some existing legitimate theaters were renovated as well, most notably the former Globe (Carrere & Hastings, 1909), which became the Lunt-Fontanne in 1958. [At this point in the Stern text there is the first of about three footnotes that cite various sources, including a July 1958 Interior Design article and a May 6,1958, “New York Times” article entitled “Broadway Agog as Theater Opens]… . Once the most luxurious of Broadway playhouses but used for movies since the 1930s, the theater was redecorated by the British designer Arthur Boys, who was asked by the new owner, Robert W. Dowling, to base his work on the music room of Frederick the Great’s Sans Souci Palace and on Venice’s Fenice Theater. Because according to Dowling, "Going to the theater should be like visiting a charming and gracious home,” he wanted the redesign to have “a new elegance and comfort.” Marya Mannes said that the original Globe had been considered “the most beautiful” theater of its day, “with Grecian pillars and a balcony promenade that drew such phrases as ‘commodious and handsome.’” Although she acknowledged that this style was “no longer supported by public taste,” she found the renovation showy, lacking the dignity required for serious drama: “Mr. Dowling has spent millions in painting the reconditioned house pale-blue and white, encruting it with rococo, stringing it with crystal chandeliers, upholstering it with damask and carpeting it in deepest pile; and what is his idea of a gracious home is my idea of an inflated poweder room.”

On page 441, there is a nice photo of one of the Lunt-Fontanne’s lobby areas with murals by Cosmo di Salvo.

When it was in its blue period I thought it one of the ugliest houses on Broadway. I have no idea what it looks like now but I’d like to know what it looked like before.

Thanks Warren I just ordered it.

Here’s a Playbill from the Lunt-Fontanne in June 1964. If you want to read the fine print, after you click on the URL you must click the image itself so that it enlarges on your screen. I’m sorry that the print-out won’t be so clear.

View link

View link

The show presented the celebrated Richard Burton performance of “Hamlet.” As directed by John Gielgud (whose off-stage voice supplied the part of the Ghost), the play unfolded on a bare-wall stage with the actors dressed in rehearsal tights, as though it were a first run-through. The performance was subsequently filmed live with the Electronovision process.

I saw the production, but I didn’t see Burton. It was a hot ticket for a limited engagement at a time when Burton-Taylor celebrity mania was still at its height. I showed up at the box office practically at dawn for day-of-sale standing room tickets. That evening as the house lights dimmed, the dreaded theater manager stepped out before the curtain to announceâ€"horrors!â€"that Mr. Burton would be indisposed that evening, to be replaced by his understudy Robert Burr.

Next day, the NYC newspapers ran headlines on the panic at the Lunt-Fontanne that evening as angry patrons rushed up the aisles demanding refunds for their tickets. I stayed on in a less-than-half empty house, guided by the belief that the rest of the cast would turn in especially good performances to compensate the faithful who remained. That, plus the electricity in the air with an unknown actor filling the shoes of the then-most-famous actor in the Anglophone world.

It turned out, I believe, to have been the only performance that Burton missed during the run. Years passed (imagine calendar pages flipping). Just last April on a visit to Indiana, I met a fellow roughly my age, and it turned out that he too had been in the audience that evening. Small world after forty-one years. We both shoudda sat down and watched the thing on Electronovision.

“The Visit” is a startling play, as it begins with an absurd premise (an old woman demands the death of a former lover for jilting her many decades earlier) and delivers on it when the victim’s friends comply with murder. Farce turns into tragedy. The Lunts were perfectly cast despite themselves, since their talent and celebrity for drawing-room comedy led audiences to expect the latter until the action veered toward horrifying drama. What I most remember about this performance in Summer ‘58 was a stage trick that had escaped me at the time: after Fontanne made her demand, she turned upstage and dropped her shawl, revealing that she wore a backless dress. The audience gasped. A friend explained that the aged actress, bareback in the spotlight, suddenly looked looked like a young woman. To this sixteen-year-old, a bare back was little more than a bare back.

In 1964 when Richard Burton was playing in Hamlet at the Lunt-Fontaine, each night after the performance a bubble-top limo would pull up to the stagedoor and Burton would get into the car where Elizabeth Taylor was waiting. Elizabeth would give Richard a big kiss and the crowds surrounding the car would cheer.

In the early 1990s, City Cinemas had an architect draw up plans for the Lunt, with it divided into 4 or 5 cinemas. As I recall, the drawings showed 2 cinemas on the orchestra level, 2 in the balcony level and possibly 1 on the stage. I don’t know what the deal was, but obviously it never happened.

What kind of a run was the Lunt Fontanne (Globe) on when it showed movies?