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Mary C Henderson
p.40
In 1938, the prolific team of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart wrote a play called The Fabulous Invalid. The play had two noteworthy legacies: the first was the term ''fabulous invalid'' that was invented and immortalized by the authors and is summoned up whenever the theatre is in a slump and its very existence is threatened. The second came via the designer they hired, the great Donald Oenslager, whose scene renderings of four façades of a fictional theatre still exist in theatre collections. They show the effects of time and tides on a Broadway theatre building, presumably the most enduring component of theatrical performance since the Greeks. (Now we know better. During the past fifty years, more theatres have been destroyed in America than in any other era anywhere in theatrical history.)
Kaufman and Hart made the theatre, which they named the Alexandria, the star and centerpiece of the show, and Oenslager traced its history scenically from 1900 to 1940, first as a premier playhouse until 1929; then as a seedy movie house followed by an even seedier burlesque theatre from 1930 to 1940, and finally, as a boarded-up derelict. The play's post script is the rescue of the theatre from certain destruction by a group of high-minded young people, who take it over and breathe new life into it.
p.41
If there ever was an example of life imitating art (almost), it is taking place here and now with the reclamation and preservation of the Biltmore Theatre in the Broadway theatre district. Like everything else in today's society, it proved to be a more difficult task than expected and, of course, more expensive than anticipated.
The Biltmore was the second of six theatres built in the booming 1920s by the Chanin Construction Company as a real estate investment. Owning a playhouse in that endlessly expanding era made good business sense. After all, the owner made rent money from producers whether their shows were hits or flops. The Chanins hired Herbert J. Krapp to design all six of their playhouses. Krapp...