Stage 42

The story

Stage 42 has exactly 499 seats — one short of the threshold that would make it a Broadway house. The Shubert Organization built it in 2002 as part of a residential tower on West 42nd Street, and it was the first Off-Broadway theatre they ever owned, and the first they built from the ground up. It was also their first new New York theatre since the Ethel Barrymore opened in 1928. Architect Hugh Hardy designed it. In 2015 it was renamed Stage 42, aligning it with the Shubert's New World Stages naming convention. That single missing seat defines everything about it.