Lucille Lortel Theatre

The story

A financier bought a theater as an anniversary present. In 1955, Louis Schweitzer acquired what was then called the Theatre de Lys and gave it to his wife, actress-producer Lucille Lortel. The building had started as a 590-seat movie house in 1926, then reopened in 1953 as an off-Broadway stage. Its defining moment came when The Threepenny Opera, with Lotte Lenya and a young Bea Arthur, ran from 1955 to 1961 — a then record-setting run for a musical in New York City. The interior, largely unchanged, still holds that history in its walls.