Vivian Beaumont Theatre

The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a theater in New York City in the United States. It is located at Lincoln Center, 150 West 65th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The building was designed by the renowned Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen. The two theaters within the building, the 1,080-seat Vivian Beaumont Theater and the 299-seat Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (called The Forum until 1973), were designed by Jo Mielziner. Although it was built for the presentation of plays such as those produced on Broadway, the Beaumont differs from traditional Broadway theaters because of its amphitheater configuration and thrust stage. It is considered a fairly large theater for dramatic plays and a medium-size theater for musicals. It is New York's only Broadway-class theater (eligible for Tony Awards) that is not located in the Theater District near Times Square.

The Beaumont is named after Vivian Beaumont Allen, a former actress and heiress to the May Department Stores fortune, who donated $3 million in 1958 for a building to house a permanent dramatic repertory company at Lincoln Center. Mrs. Allen died in 1962, and after several delays and estimated construction costs of $9.6 million, the Beaumont Theater opened in October 1965.

Since 1985, the Beaumont has been operated by Lincoln Center Theater (now under the direction of André Bishop and Bernard Gersten). It has been renovated several times over the years to improve its acoustics and technical facilities.

Notable productions by Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont have included the well-received 2008 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific", Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" and "Arcadia", "The Light in the Piazza", Dana Ivey in "The Rivals", Stephen Sondheim's "The Frogs", Christopher Plummer in "King Lear", Kevin Kline in "Henry IV", the long-running "dance play" musical "Contact", Nicholas Hytner's production of "Twelfth Night", Stockard Channing in "Six Degrees of Separation", Patti Lupone in Cole Porter's "Anything Goes", and the 1994 Tony Award revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" (the Broadway debut of Tony-winner Audra McDonald).

Before 1985, the theater had several other managers and some periods of inactivity:
* 1965-1973: Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center (under the direction of Jules Irving and Herbert Blau)
* 1973-1977: New York Shakespeare Festival (under the direction of Joseph Papp)
* 1980-1981: Lincoln Center Theater Company (under the direction of Richmond Crinkley)

The theater has been rented occasionally to commercial producers, most memorably in 1983 for Peter Brook's production of "La Tragedie de Carmen".

External links

* [http://www.lct.org/ Lincoln Center Theater] Official site
* [http://www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/vivianbeaumonttheater/theater.html Broadway Theatre Guide] with full show details for the Vivian Beaumont Theatre
*ibdb venue|id=1377|venue=Vivian Beaumont Theatre
* [http://www.lct.org/history.html Lincoln Center Theater] Building history.