Behind an exterior much like its neighbours, the Ambassador Theatre on West 49th Street hides an unusual trick: architect Herbert J. Krapp set the auditorium at a diagonal across the plot so he could fit in as many seats as the lot allowed. Built for the Shubert brothers during their burst of expansion after the First World War, it opened in February 1921 with a musical called The Rose Girl and was one of four houses the family raised on 48th and 49th Streets in quick succession. Its history since has been anything but straightforward. The Shuberts sold the building in 1935, and for the next two decades it served as a cinema and as a television studio for NBC and the DuMont network rather than a stage, even taking the name Ambassador Tele-Theatre for a spell. The Shubert Organization bought it back in 1956 and returned it to live performance, and the auditorium interior has since been designated a New York City landmark. Accounts of its early years note that a 1920s operetta set a long-run record the theatre held for nearly fifty years. The house seats roughly 1,125 across an orchestra and a single mezzanine. Before its long association with its current tenant, the room gave early stage time to newcomers: a 1939 revue there featured Danny Kaye, Imogene Coca and a young Jerome Robbins. Since 1996 it has been home to the revival of Chicago, which has become the longest-running American musical on Broadway, staged in the spare, stripped-down style of director and choreographer Bob Fosse, with the band placed on the stage itself rather than in a pit. That single run has tied the address closely to one show for a generation of visitors. For audiences the appeal is a mid-sized, comparatively intimate theatre with a strong sightline from the orchestra; the diagonal layout that shaped its design is invisible from the pavement but accounts for the slightly off-axis feel inside. The theatre sits a block from the Times Square subway lines, putting it within easy reach of the wider Broadway district and its surrounding restaurants.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 219 West 49th Street, New York City, NY, United States

Telephone: (212) 239-6200

Website: https://shubert.nyc/theatres/ambassador

Capacity: 1125

Opening Date: 11/02/1921