I have vivid memories of how strongly emotions ran at this time. I was in my early 20s. I'd been attending the theatre for around 12 years and had seen a few plays at the Morosco, the last being Hugh Leonard's A Life, and a few less at the Helen Hayes. My most vivid memory of the Hayes is of the first non-musical piece I ever saw, Hadrian VII, which featured a remarkable lead performance by Alec McCowen. Amazingly I re-read the play a couple of years ago and was surprised by how much of it I remembered. It left quite an impression.
Anyway, my impression in that time period was that those two theatres were the premier theatres for non-musicals (although the Hayes hosted The Me Nobody Knows in the early 70s). Though the area around them had deteriorated, with the Astor and Victoria movie theatres having shuttered some time before, it was still a shock to hear that the Morosco and Helen Hayes were to be demolished. I attended many rallies, and many people from the theatre community gave impassioned speeches in Shubert Alley, just across from the Morosco. At one point I remember Christopher Reeve and Treat Williams joined by two actresses I do not recall reading through Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment, which had played the Hayes.. Other plays were read as well, and many actors participated. I remember Glenn Close being one of them, although I could not tell you what she read. I vividly remember Colleen Dewhurst, who had memorably played the Morosco in A Moon For The Misbegotten, speaking passionately against the demolition.
There were many protestors there day after day, and many actors speaking or reading from plays that had played the two theatres, but it was all to no avail.
What I most remember was the defiant act of the new owners in smashing a hole into the side of the Morosco (after the surrounding buildings, which included smaller theatres, had been destroyed, as if to throw into everyone's face the fact that nothing was going to sway them. It stood there like that, with a gaping hole in its easternmost wall, and it brought back eerie memories of Follies (although the Morosco was not in any way the glamorous palace the Weissman had been) until the wrecking ball took it down.
I miss those two theatres to this day. Maybe they woke us all up to how hard we had to fight to honor our legacy. There has been no talk of any such demolitions since, has there?
Interestingly, within the prior twelve years two long-standing Broadway houses were demolished without any protest that I know of (I could easily have not been aware if there had been). The Playhouse on the north side of 48th Street just West of 6th Ave, directly across from The Cort, made way for another 6th Avenue skyscraper in the late 60s, and the George Abbott Theatre on 6th Avenue and 54th Street went down in the mid-70s after housing too many flop musicals. Perhaps their off-the-beaten-path locations made their destructions less upsetting? In any event, the exterior of The Playhouse can be viewed in Mel Brooks' original film of The Producers (I believe the interior of the theatre is used as well), and exterior photos of the Abbott (once the 54th Street Theater) reveal it to have been a grand, old-style palace.
It always struck me as unfair that Mr. Abbott and Helen Hayes saw the houses named after them torn down. Hayes, at least, lived long enough to see The Little Theatre renamed for her.
Updated On: 8/7/17 at 02:17 PM
