So it was not surprising that they arrived at the theater separately, Taylor by limousine and Burton on foot. Tidbit: By the time Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton came to Boston to star in the 1983 revival of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives” at the Shubert, the pair had famously been married and divorced twice. Touring companies continue to visit the Shubert, which also presents performances by many local arts organizations. In early 1949, Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” opened at the Shubert before moving to Broadway and going on to win a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Tony awards. Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Maurice Evans, Angela Lansbury, Julie Harris, Chita Rivera and Mary Martin are just a few of the many theater greats who have graced the Shubert stage. Its single-bay, painted, stone-cast façade is dominated by a large Palladian window rising from the arched entrance canopy. The Shubert Theatre – which opened Jan. 24, 1910, with a production of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” – was designed by architect Thomas M.

Its curved shape, said to have been inspired by the inside of a megaphone, is credited with giving the theatre its superior acoustics. Tidbit: The Majestic was the first American theater constructed without balcony support columns, thus allowing for unobstructed views of the stage. In 1983, Emerson College purchased the Majestic for its performing arts program and began a lengthy, thorough restoration that included the building’s eye-catching gray terra cotta façade and stained glass windows.ĪrtsEmerson productions as well as touring shows regularly take the stage at the Cutler Majestic, named for two of Boston’s most influential and respected arts philanthropists, the late Joan and Ted Cutler. After being sold to the Sack Cinema chain in 1956, the theater was converted into a movie house called the Saxon. Fields, Harry Houdini, Lena Horne, and Ethel Merman. Wood and opened on Feb. 16, 1903, with a production of a musical called “The Storks.”įor its first half-century, the Majestic presented vaudeville and Broadway stars including the Marx Brothers, W.C. Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, 221 Tremont St.įeaturing extravagant Beaux Arts detail inside and out, the Majestic Theatre was designed by John Galen Howard and J.M.

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