Hayes Theater is a Broadway theatre located at 240 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan. With 597 seats, it is the smallest theatre on Broadway. It was an ABC Television studio from 1957 to 1963. Later the syndicated talk show The Merv Griffin Show, before it moved to Los Angeles in 1972, was taped at the theatre.
History
Little Theatre/New York Times Hall
The Little Theatre was designed by the architect Harry Creighton Ingalls of the firm Ingalls & Hoffman, and built by Winthrop Ames; its name was chosen due to both the theatre's small size, and its goal to create intimate productions. The theatre opened on March 12, 1912, with John Galsworthy's play The Pigeon. Other plays opening that year included:
In the 1920s, Herbert J. Krapp redesigned the theatre to increase its seating capacity to 590 and to improve its acoustics. The building was sold to The New York Times in 1931, and converted into a conference hall named 'New York Times Hall'. Westinghouse Broadcasting used the theatre for the Merv Griffin Show during the 1960s.
In 1979, Martin Markinson and Donald Tick bought the theatre from Westinghouse for $800,000. The theatre was named for Helen Hayes in 1983 when the actress's existing namesake theatre on West 46th Street was demolished, along with the Morosco Theatre and the Bijou Theatre, to construct the New York Marriott Marquis. According to Playbill, "The tribute was deemed fitting by the theatrical community, since the first theatre bearing the name of Helen Hayes, on West Forty-sixth Street, had been torn down in 1982 to make way for the Marriott Marquis Hotel."
Hayes Theater
In July 2008, it was announced that Markinson and the Tick family planned to sell the theatre to the Second Stage Theater company for an undisclosed price. It was announced on April 18, 2015, that the sale of Helen Hayes Theater to Second Stage had been completed. The sale price was $24.7 million. The first Second Stage production at the Hayes Theater was Lobby Hero, by Kenneth Lonergan, starring Michael Cera and Chris Evans, which opened in the spring of 2018, after renovations and upgrades. Second Stage became one of only four nonprofit theater companies that own and operate theaters on Broadway. The theatre has been closed as of March 12, 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It does not plan on opening until January 3, 2021.
Rock of Ages achieved the box office record for the Helen Hayes Theatre. The production grossed $745,205 over nine performances, for the week ending December 31, 2012.
2019: What the Constitution Means to Me; Linda Vista
2020: Grand Horizons; Take Me Out
Radio and television studio
used the theatre as a radio studio for a time, but it was converted to television by ABC in 1957 and renamed the Little Theatre. Dick Clark's Saturday night The Dick Clark Show originated there from February 1958 through September 1960. During this time, ABC also broadcast the daytime show Who Do You Trust? with Johnny Carson from the theatre. It was briefly renamed the Winthrop Ames Theatre in 1964. From 1965 through 1983, it was again the Little Theatre. During the early part of that period, Westinghouse Broadcasting taped the syndicated Merv Griffin Show there and later, The David Frost Show. The 1969–70 season of the game show Beat the Clock hosted by Jack Narz was also taped there. Colin Quinn's one-man show Long Story Short was recorded there as an HBO special; it had opened at the theatre in November 2010.
