Among Frazee’s notable early productions at the Longacre were
Kick In (1914), starring John Barrymore and Katherine Harris,
A Pair of Sixes (1914), and
Nothing But the Truth (1916), with William Collier.
Leave It to Jane (1917), by Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, and Jerome Kern also had a successful run here. In the 1920s, Ethel Barrymore made three appearances at the playhouse in
Rosie Bernd, Romeo and Juliet, and Laughing Lady, while George S. Kaufman premiered his hit comedy
The Butter and Egg Man (1925). Some notable future stars graced the stage at this time: Jessica Tandy in
The Matriarch (1930) and Clark Gable in
Hawk Island (1929).
The Group Theatre took up residence in 1935, offering three productions by Clifford Odets:
Waiting for Lefty,
Till the Day I Die, and
Paradise Lost. The casts featured Odets, Elia Kazan, Bobby Lewis, Stella Adler, Morris Carnovsky, and Sanford Meisner.
After a decade in radio and television, the Longacre reopened as a theatrical venue in 1953 with Dorothy Parker’s
The Ladies of the Corridor. Star turns at the Longacre included Julie Harris in
Mademoiselle Colombe (1954) (also featuring Robert Redford),
The Lark (1955), and
Little Moon of Alban (1960); Zero Mostel in
Rhinoceros (1961); Ossie Davis in
Purlie Victorious (1961); and Hal Holbrook in
Mark Twain Tonight (1966).
Some other significant shows of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were
A Case of Libel (1963), Lorraine Hansberry’s
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (1964), Robert Anderson’s
I Never Sang for My Father (1968), Terrence McNally’s
The Ritz (1975), Harold Pinter’s
No Man’s Land (1976) starring John Gielgud, a revival of
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1977) featuring Al Pacino, and the Shubert-produced hits
Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978) and
Children of a Lesser God (1980).
The Longacre was also the home to Diana Rigg’s Tony-winning turn as
Medea (1994), David Henry Hwang’s
Golden Child (1998), and Russell Simmons
Def Poetry Jam (2002). The Longacre housed four noteworthy revivals:
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff? (2005) with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin,
Talk Radio (2007) starring Liev Schreiber, and Tony Award-winning revivals of
Boeing-Boeing (2008) and
La Cage aux Folles (2010). More recently the Longacre showcased
Chinglish (2011), Mike Tyson's one man show,
Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth (2012), James Franco in
Of Mice and Men (2014), the award winning revival of
You Can't Take It With You (2014) and the musical
A Bronx Tale (2016).
Visit the Internet Broadway Database for a complete list.
