5th Avenue Theatre

A monumental venue seating 2130, the 5th Avenue Theatre hosts touring Broadway musicals, but also puts on large-scale original productions of its own. Many of the shows premiered by the company are bound for Broadway, and in that sense the 5th Avenue Theatre is seen as a testing ground, giving a start to productions like Hairspray, The Wedding Singer and Jekyll & Hyde. The theatre is part of the Neo-Renaissance Skinner Building, going back to 1925, and has an extravagant interior full of flourishes inspired by Chinese temples. There’s a pair of Imperial guardian lions watching the stairway to the second level gallery, while the lobby has an stunning plaster canopy imitating bamboo.