CONFIRMED: Second Stage buys Helen Hayes Theatre; venue to be renamed

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 11:37am

http://www.lohud.com/story/entertainment/2015/01/09/helen-hayes-name-removed-broadway-theater/21523919/

Decades after her death, Helen Hayes may be making her final Broadway exit.

The Jan. 18 closing of the musical "Rock of Ages" heralds what could be the end of an honor bestowed on a Rocklander for the ages.

The nonprofit Second Stage Theatre is buying Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre on West 44th Street and selling the naming rights to the 102-year-old venue. The name, Executive Director Casey Reitz has said in published reports, will undoubtedly change, meaning that for the first time in 60 years, the name of Helen Hayes — a 60-year Nyack resident who was proclaimed "the first lady of the American theater" — will not grace a Broadway theater.

[After Eight]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 12:02pm

Depressing.

[wonkit]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 12:19pm

The only poetic justice would be someone buying the naming rights and naming it the "Helen Hayes Theatre."

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 12:22pm

That makes me really despise 2nd Stage. So now we're going to have The Papa Johns Theatre? I mean C'mon.

[Kad]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 12:29pm

It's a bit early to "despise" them when we don't know the name.

Second Stage needs the money to not only renovate the theatre, but to help bring it into their company and program shows there.

As is mentioned several times in the article- it's just a name.

Updated On: 1/11/15 at 12:29 PM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 1:34pm

I still think it's taking someone so sacred to a lot of us - the theatre - and throwing a brand on it. It would be different if the branding had something to do with theatre, but it'll be like the H&M theatre or something stupid.

All so they can put on mediocore plays and revivals? Oof.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 1:43pm

All so they can put on mediocore plays and revivals? Oof.

Yes! I'm less concerned about the name of the theatre and more concerned about the quality of the productions they will now be charging Broadway prices for.

[Mr. Musical]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 1:46pm

"I still think it's taking someone so sacred to a lot of us - the theatre - and throwing a brand on it. It would be different if the branding had something to do with theatre, but it'll be like the H&M theatre or something"

No one said whoever buys the naming rights won't name it after something theatre related

[Kad]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 1:46pm

"I still think it's taking someone so sacred to a lot of us - the theatre - and throwing a brand on it. It would be different if the branding had something to do with theatre, but it'll be like the H&M theatre or something stupid."

What are you basing that on? Literally NOTHING has been indicated that is what is happening.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 2:13pm

Interestingly, nothing has been confirmed and this whole article is one big exercise in unwarranted and pointless hysteria. The linked article is merely regurgitating extant information, and giving it a "local" treatment. If the pearl clutchers here are so up in arms, why don't they get together and buy the naming rights: the theatre would, I am sure, be more than happy to take their money and leave the name as is.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 3:26pm

If true and it is renamed, Helen Hayes will have the dubious honor of having 2 theaters named after her and than losing them Since the Marquis is partially on the space of the old Helen Hayes, why not rename the Marquis the Helen Hayes? Who the hell is Marquis anyhow?

[round2]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 3:37pm

At this point, is it Helen Hayes whose contributions to American theater are most deserving of this tribute, ahead of others not honored in this way?

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 3:38pm

Yes.

And why is it called Marquis instead of Marquee?

[After Eight]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 4:11pm

Earlier this week, there was a thread on this board inquiring what people's favorite Broadway Theatre was.

I answered the old Helen Hayes Theatre.

Now I'll have to add, the first one.

Today's theatre world: no remembrance of the past; no concern, gratitude, appreciation, or recognition of the past; no consideration; no class.

Just a disgrace.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 4:13pm

Whatever happened to class?

Where is style, where is skill, where is forethought?

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 4:22pm

The article said the naming rights were for sale. I can't imagine a big corporation would buy the naming rights and keep it the Helen Hayes.

Still think the American Airline should have kept it's original name and just had American Airline plastered everywhere.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 4:37pm

"Today's theatre world: no remembrance of the past."

If this little fit of mistaken nostalgia is intended to suggest that it was not always thus, then that is pure nonsense. Where are the theatres that were named for the stars of the prior century? What theatres were torn down by the generation that constructed the original Helen Hayes, Morosco et al. in the first quarter of the 20th Century? It seems to me this is just another case of someone's ego-centric world viewed based on the mistaken premise that only that which they grew up around is worthy of adulation. The truth, I suspect, is that you don't know a damn thing about the theatre of a century before your time, and all you are interested in is preserving what you know.

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 5:00pm

The Booth Theatre is named after Edwin Booth, who died in 1893. There are theatres named after all types of theatre people.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 5:06pm

No theaters were torn down to build the Morosco or the old Helen Hayes. They were built when the theatre district was first taking shape in its present location in the early 20th century.

[Junior Babcock]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 5:15pm

And why was Erlanger's Theatre renamed after St. James? And RIP Martin Beck.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 5:17pm

Someone should really write a set of parody lyrics of "Liaisons" set in the mindset of AfterEight.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 5:18pm

Maybe they felt having a Saint in their corner would get a blessing for incoming shows.

Martin Beck - hit the bricks. Enter Al Hirschfeld. How long before it is renamed again?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 5:27pm

Today's theatre world: no remembrance of the past; no concern, gratitude, appreciation, or recognition of the past; no consideration; no class.

Oh, it's sooooo true. You never hear about Shakespeare anywhere and have his plays EVER been on Broadway? Thank god we have Grandmama to keep us connected, however tenuously, to the past.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 6:05pm

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes we both
Oh yes we both
Oh yes, we both reached for
The gun, the gun, the gun, the gun
Oh yes, we both reached for the gun
For the gun.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 6:11pm

smaxie, you are guilty of not only careless but narrow reading. I did not suggest there had been theatres on that site. what I said was that we do not mourn the theatres torn down by the generation that built the current theatre district. obviously those theatres were in other areas, which underscores my point. Fantod, citing the one exception to the rule does not prove the contrary rule. It is beyond question that the theatre community of the 1920s turned their back on the nostalgia of the 19th Century, just as the community of the 1980s turned its back on what was built in the 1920s. If what has been done in the recent past is classless, what was done before is no classier. And anyone who wants to properly honor the history of New York will recognize that it is the absence of sentimentality that is the cornerstone of the New York zeitgeist, and that has been the case since those British ships entered New York harbor and the Dutch burghers shrugged their shoulders and went on building the foundation of the greatest city in the world.