The Brooks Atkinson Bathrooms

I can't believe your friend's wait was only 12 minutes for the ladies room at intermission. The ladies room situation at the BA is reprehensible and once you do make it through the magical doors, you're correct that the layout is old and absurd.

I hope the theatre owners are taking notes.

Yeah the bathroom there is insane. Both when I saw spring awakening and waitress there they ended up making the boys bathroom unisex

Welcome back guys! Love your reviews.

Just from looking, the B.A. ladies room line is shameful.

I'm glad you enjoy the reviews! I was really surprised by th B.A., especially since I find Nederlander theaters have scored pretty high in the past!

LizzieCurry said: "Aren't a lot of theatres having intermission last 18 to 20 minutes now, but only telling people it's 15, for this very reason?



For some reason, I feel that intermission had gone by faster and faster. I saw The Crucible the other night and intermission felt like 7-8 minutes max. I couldn't believe it and could've used a few more minutes, especially for a show that long and dense.

Notreallysilent 2 said: "LizzieCurry said: "Aren't a lot of theatres having intermission last 18 to 20 minutes now, but only telling people it's 15, for this very reason?

Actually when I went to see waitress the intermission lasted 20 minutes."

I think that's about right. I noticed that after the first bell rang, it was well over 5 minutes before the next one did.

I was there another night when the women used the men's room. It went very smoothly and everyone cooperated...and most of the men were out of the area by then already and the women were just grateful to have the opportunity.

It's just a very small theater in general. The desk that head ushers do their paperwork is sitting in the upstairs lobby right next to the concession area...in full public view. There is just not a lot of space to expand anywhere for anything.

That said, the ladies bathroom are the cleanest I have seen around. They definitely get cleaned a number of times during each show and there is a cold water drinking cooler in there as well.

KathyNYC2 said: "I was there another night when the women used the men's room. It went very smoothly and everyone cooperated...and most of the men were out of the area by then already and the women were just grateful to have the opportunity."

Glad they have figured out how to ease the line by allowing women to use the men's room. I was there a couple of times (pre-Tony's) and there was a grouchy older usher who freaked out when any women tried to use the men's room. It is just a necessity with that small a bathroom and a show with an even higher than average female audience. They cannot control the lack of space/bathroom size but they can control how they deal with the problem.

I do agree that the restrooms are clean but man the stalls are ridiculously tiny.

GreatPorcelainWay said: "I really like to think that they're trying, and obviously there's nothing that can be done in the middle of a run, which is really unfortunate. It makes me wonder, though, the theaters housed the same number of people (relatively) back when they were built... so why is a higher percentage using the restrooms?

I suspect the culprit is allowing drinks in the auditorium.



"

I think the same percentage of the audience is still using the bathroom as back then, but what has changed is the ratio between men and women. You could probably say more men were going to the theatre back when they theaters were built. It was probably a 50:50 ratio. Now it's overwhelmingly women. The solution would be expanding the women's bathroom taking away from the men's.

Theatres that have the men's and women's restrooms back to back can pretty easily take from the men's to expand the women's, like the Sondheim did. This would be impossible at the Brooks Atkinson and many others.

To add another strike to the BA, apparently the theatre is having real air conditioning problems lately. Patrons have tweeted about it as has Keala Settle, at length. Sheesh.