Majestic Theatre

The story

The rear of the orchestra sits a full story above ground, the result of stadium seating so steep it reshaped how audiences experienced a Broadway house. Herbert J. Krapp designed the Majestic in a Spanish style for developer Irwin S. Chanin, and it opened in 1927 with golden brick, terracotta, and a plaster dome overhead. Now operated by the Shubert Organization, its facade and interior are both New York City landmarks — 1,681 seats that have outlasted nearly a century of the theater district's reinventions.