HISTORY & RESTORATION (con't)

The Apollo c.1925. Left: 42nd Street entrance. Right: Auditorium. Photos from building proposal submitted to Livent by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, LLP, and Kofman Engineering, Ltd. Project Managers & Architect.

George White, whose Scandals were popular rivals to the Ziegfield Follies, mounted several successful editions of the series at the Apollo. Stars included Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Rudy Vallee and Ed Wynn. In 1932 the rowdy Take a Chance gave Ethel Merman one of her trademark songs, "Eadie was a Lady", and also gave the Apollo its last hit before its closure in 1933. It reopened in 1934 as a burlesque house, and in 1938 it began a long and chequered career as a movie theatre.

The Apollo's 1979-83 rehabilitation as a theatre housed three noteworthy plays in succession, On Golden Pond, Bent and Lanford Wilson's The Fifth of July. But in 1983 it went back to movies, later switching to rock concerts and Parisian-styled cabaret.

The Apollo was a technically advanced theatre, perfectly equipped for the musicals of its day. So it's fitting that the stage of the Apollo should be the core of what is now the biggest stage on Broadway. The original proscenium arch and main dome have been restored and expanded. The new auditorium incorporates plaster detailing that matches the Greek mythological motifs of the original theatre.

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