Eugene O'Neill Theatre

Stand still on West 49th Street for a moment. Yellow cabs crawl past, a delivery bike rattles over a steel plate in the road, and somewhere a crowd is laughing on the pavement before the doors even open. Look up at the brick facade, the marquee lights, the name spelled out in capitals. This is the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. It is one of the smaller houses on Broadway, and that is exactly why it feels so personal.

The building opened in 1925, during a boom that filled these Midtown side streets with new playhouses. It was built for the Shubert family, the powerful brothers who controlled a large share of American theatre at the time. Their go-to architect was Herbert J. Krapp. He designed many of the theatres you can see within a few blocks of here. His buildings tend to look calm and orderly from the street, with the real decoration saved for inside.

The theatre did not start with this name. It opened as the Forrest Theatre, named after Edwin Forrest, a famous American actor of the nineteenth century. Forrest was known for a loud, muscular style of performance. His fans were so passionate that a rivalry with a British actor once ended in a deadly riot in Manhattan. So the first name on this marquee belonged to a man whose career showed how seriously New Yorkers have always taken their theatre.

In the mid-1940s the house was renamed the Coronet. And in 1947, under that name, it hosted an important premiere: Arthur Miller's All My Sons. This was the play that first made Miller a major voice. It tells the story of a family destroyed by a secret about faulty aircraft parts sold during the war. Audiences who sat in these seats were watching the start of a career that would reshape American drama.

In 1959 the theatre took its current name, honouring Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill is often called the father of serious American drama. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama four times. His plays are long, dark, and deeply personal. Long Day's Journey into Night, his portrait of his own troubled family, was only staged after his death.

Here is the first surprise. A theatre named after America's most famous tragic playwright later became a home for comedy. In the late 1960s, the playwright Neil Simon bought the building. Simon was the master of the Broadway laugh, and several of his own comedies played here while he owned it. Picture it — a comic writer standing at the back of a house named for O'Neill, listening to an audience roar at his jokes.

The building later passed to Jujamcyn Theaters, a company that ran a group of Broadway houses for decades. Ownership on Broadway changes hands more often than visitors expect. But the name on the marquee has stayed the same since 1959. That steady name is part of what gives each theatre on this street its own identity, even when the people behind it change.

Now think about the size of the room behind these doors. The auditorium holds just over a thousand seats. That sounds like a lot, but by Broadway standards it is intimate. The balcony sits close to the stage. Even from the upper rows, you can often see an actor's face clearly. Performers often talk about this kind of house with affection, because a small room lets a joke land and a quiet moment stay quiet.

Inside, Krapp's design follows a restrained, classical style. Expect soft curves, painted plasterwork, and gentle ornament rather than heavy gold. In the late 1980s, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission gave protection to a large group of Broadway theatres, and this one was part of that effort. Protection means the historic character of the building cannot simply be torn out. Each renovation has to respect what Krapp built nearly a century ago.

Over the years, this stage has carried very different kinds of shows. In the 1990s, a revival of Grease filled the house with leather jackets and pop songs. In 2006, Spring Awakening arrived, a rock musical about teenagers in nineteenth century Germany. It brought a younger crowd to Broadway and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. This mix of tragedy, comedy, and rock music is typical of how a Broadway house lives many lives.

And then, in 2011, came The Book of Mormon. Created by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez, it follows two young missionaries sent to Uganda. Here is the second surprise. The show has stayed in this same theatre ever since, which makes it one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history. Many visitors do not realise that a single production can occupy one building for well over a decade.

That long run has changed the street outside, too. Before evening shows, you will often see a small crowd hoping for last-minute seats or a glimpse of the cast at the stage door. Look at how the marquee lights reflect on the pavement after dark. Listen to the mix of languages in the queue. People come from every continent to sit in this room and laugh at the same jokes.

Take a breath before you move on. Behind that brick wall, a stage that hosted Arthur Miller's early triumph now carries a musical comedy every night. Notice the name above you once more — a tragic writer's name, glowing over a house full of laughter. As you walk away along 49th Street, listen for the next crowd gathering. The story of this building is still being written, one performance at a time.