National Theatre (Manhattan)

For the Broadway theatre previously known as the National Theatre, see Nederlander Theatre.

For the 1833–41 theater at Leonard and Church Streets in Manhattan, see Lorenzo Da Ponte § American career.

The National Theatre was a Yiddish theater at the southwest corner of Chrystie Street and Houston Street in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan, New York City, United States.^[1] When first built it was leased to Boris Thomashefsky and Julius Adler.^[2] Its grand opening as the Adler-Thomashefsky National Theatre was on September 24, 1912.^[3][4]

Yiddish theater poster for "Saints and Sinners" at Jennie Goldstein's National Theatre (1935)

The theater was one of the many designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, and seated 1,900 when it opened. It was built as one of a pair of theaters, with the Crown Theater, seating 963, in the rooftop theater.^[5] Both theaters closed in 1941, re-opened in 1951 as a pair of cinemas (the National Theater and the Roosevelt Theater), and were demolished in 1959.^[2]

References

1. Stein, Joshua David (26 January 2007). "See the Lower East Side: If Not Now, When?". Gridskipper. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
2. "National Theatre & Roosevelt Theatre". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
3. Zylbercweig, Zalmen (1934). "Tomashefsky, Boris" (in Yiddish). Leksikon fun yidishn teater [Lexicon of the Yiddish theatre]. Vol. 2. Warsaw: Farlag Elisheva. Columns 804-840; here: col. 822.
4. "Grand Opening of the Adler-Thomashefsky National Theatre, Houston St. and Second Avenue" [program] (1912). New York: Lipshitz Press. For performance on September 24, 1912. Digitized version retrieved via the New York Public Library, December 26, 2016.
5. Thissen, Judith (April 16, 2023). "Curtain Falls on the Sunshine…". Digital Yiddish Theatre Project. March 12, 2018. Retrieved April 18, 2023.

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