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Although the history of theatre in New York City dates back to well before the 1800’s, it was the beginning of the 20th century that saw the establishment of Broadway as we know it today.
In 1891, the first electric marquis lit up a theatre located at the current site of the Flatiron Building, where Fifth Avenue crosses Broadway on 23rd Street. Ten years later, the theatre district would be so illuminated by white lights that O.J. Gaude would refer to it as the “great white way.” The construction of theatres during the early 1900’s would concentrate the district, formerly spread out over more than 30 blocks, in midtown. In 1904, New York City Mayor George B. McClellan officially re-named Longacre Square as Times Square, in recognition of the arrival of the offices of The New York Times.
From the beginning, Broadway gained praise and popularity with shows including The Wizard of Oz, Babes in Toyland, Madame Butterfly and Peter Pan. Turn of the century theatre genres included light comedies and operettas. Many traditions were also adapted from vaudeville, and in 1921 Eubie Blake and Noble Sissel’s Shuffle Along became Broadway’s first show produced by and starring black actors. The show is also credited with sparking the Harlem Renaissance!
Musicals also made an early debut on Broadway. Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton’s 1915 show Very Good Eddie is often credited as being the first to incorporate songs as part of the action. This style was continued by Kern, Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, and most fully realized in 1927 in Showboat, the first show in which songs were written to match the story line, rather than the other way around.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the theatre community rallied. Irving Berlin wrote Yip, Yip, Yaphank as entertainment for the soldiers, and Ben Ali Hagan’s patriotic Ziegfield Follies of 1917 was so popular that the French government reportedly commissioned pictures of the leading actress, Kay Laurell, to help recruit soldiers. Broadway stars organized food drives, promoted Liberty Bonds on stage and even volunteered on a seventeen-city tour, raising well over half a million dollars for the Red Cross.
Actors also mobilized around a cause closer to home. In 1919, the Actor’s Equity Association went on strike for a month, organizing parades and picket lines, before finally achieving a $30.00 per week minimum wage, an additional $5.00 fee for traveling out-of-town and a four-week limit on unpaid rehearsal time.
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