James Earl Jones Theatre

The James Earl Jones Theatre is a three-level Broadway playhouse on West 48th Street, owned and operated by The Shubert Organization. Plays have filled most of its calendar. It opened in 1912 as the Cort Theatre, named for John Cort, a former vaudeville comic who ran a Seattle-based circuit of about 150 western theaters before producing in New York.

Since 2022 the house has honored James Earl Jones (1931–2024). He made his Broadway debut on this stage in Sunrise at Campobello in 1958 and later won Tony Awards for The Great White Hope and Fences. The change answered a 2020 pledge by Broadway's big owners to honor a Black theater artist with a theater name, and it made this only the second Broadway house named for one.

Edward B. Corey owned the site and leased the new building to Cort, and the lease demanded finishes at least as fine as those of the Playhouse Theatre across the street. On December 20, 1912, the Cort opened with Peg o' My Heart, starring Laurette Taylor, which played 603 performances. Early successes such as Under Cover (1914) soon earned it a name as a lucky house.

The Shuberts bought the building in 1927, and Cort retired in 1929. Katharine Hepburn (These Days, 1928), Grace Kelly (The Father, 1949) and Jane Fonda (There Was a Little Girl, 1960) all made their Broadway debuts here, and the Pulitzer winner The Diary of Anne Frank opened in 1955. From 1969 to 1972 CBS leased the house as a TV studio, home to The Merv Griffin Show until it moved to California in 1970. Then came the record holder: The Magic Show, a Stephen Schwartz musical starring Doug Henning, opened in 1974 and gave 1,920 performances. Later tenants included Zoe Caldwell in Medea (1982), Radio Golf (2007), the last play by August Wilson, and Fences (2010) with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Jones himself returned in 2005 for On Golden Pond.

The city gave landmark status to the exterior and the interior on November 17, 1987. Dark from March 12, 2020, the theater used the pandemic pause for a restoration and a new annex. It was dedicated under the Jones name on September 12, 2022, and Ohio State Murders opened that December. In June 2026 a bronze bust of Jones was unveiled in the lobby.

Thomas W. Lamb (1871–1942) designed over 300 theaters, mostly cinemas, and this is the only one of his playhouses still active on Broadway, although Corey took credit for the design in the opening program. The marble front adapts the Petit Trianon at Versailles: four fluted Corinthian columns, three arched entrance bays and the words CORT THEATRE, still inscribed in the frieze. The 2021 marquee echoes the original with three arches.

Inside, Arthur Brunet's decoration looks to 18th-century France in the age of Marie Antoinette, and the lobby, lined in white Pavanozza marble, keeps a bust of the queen in a wall niche. In the square auditorium, cameo and lattice panels trim the boxes and balconies, and a minuet mural after Watteau spans the sounding board above the stage. The showpiece is the proscenium: pierced plaster lattice over art glass that can be lit from behind. The restoration, guided by Francesca Russo, switched that glow back on.

The five-story annex to the west, designed by Kostow Greenwood Architects, is plainly modern. It adds lounges linked by a grand staircase, restrooms, rehearsal rooms and new dressing rooms, and freed space for a larger stage-left wing.

There are no steps at the entrance, and the whole orchestra is step-free. An elevator in the annex serves the mezzanine, the balcony and the lower lounge; on foot, the mezzanine is 25 steps up and the balcony 55. Wheelchair spaces and aisle seats with folding armrests are on all three seating levels; accessible restrooms are in the lower lounge and on both upper levels.

Infrared assistive listening devices are offered at every performance. Once a show has been officially open for four weeks, handheld audio description and captioning devices are free, and both can be downloaded to your own phone; earlier, live CART captioning can be requested two weeks ahead. Children under four are not admitted.