Broadway theater
1564 Broadway · 1,648 seats · opened 1913
Quick take
A 1,648-seat Broadway house on Broadway, home to The Lost Boys since 2024.
Musical · Now playing
Now playing since Apr 2026
2 h 30 min, one intermission
A pop-rock musical from the 1987 vampire film: a divorced mom brings her two sons to Santa Carla, California, and the older boy falls in with a band of flying vampires.
The next 7 days at the Palace Theatre.
All times Eastern. Schedule last checked Nov 7
The Palace Theatre sits at the top of Times Square and seats 1,648 across an orchestra and two balconies. The Nederlander Organization, which owns it with Stewart F. Lane, operates it as one of its nine Broadway houses. Since 1966 its stage has gone mostly to musicals, with star concerts in between.
Before that it was the most prestigious vaudeville stage in the nation, and "playing the Palace" remains show business shorthand for success.
Martin Beck, head of the western Orpheum Circuit, had the Palace built, and it opened on March 24, 1913, with Ed Wynn leading the bill. His rival, Edward F. Albee, took a three-quarters stake and ran it. Crowds came only after Sarah Bernhardt played here on May 5, 1913. The usual program was two daily shows of roughly nine acts each, with new bills every Monday. Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, Fanny Brice, Mae West and the Marx Brothers all appeared, and the house earned the nickname Valhalla of Vaudeville.
Vaudeville faded with film, radio and the Depression. From 1932 the RKO Palace was mostly a cinema, and Citizen Kane premiered here in 1941. RKO brought live acts back in 1949, and Judy Garland opened a 19-week run on October 16, 1951, but in 1957 the Palace went back to films, bar a 1959 Harry Belafonte run.
The Nederlanders bought the theater in 1965 and reopened it for Broadway on January 29, 1966, with Sweet Charity, staged by Bob Fosse and starring Gwen Verdon. Applause, Woman of the Year and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances) followed, and the 25th Annual Tony Awards took place here in 1971.
Between 1987 and 1991 a hotel tower replaced the Broadway office wing and wrapped around the auditorium; The Will Rogers Follies opened there on May 1, 1991. Beauty and the Beast gave 2,250 performances here from 1994 until it transferred in 1999; Aida then played all 1,852 of its performances here between 2000 and 2004.
After SpongeBob SquarePants in 2018, the house closed for the TSX Broadway development, which jacked the auditorium up about 30 feet in 2022 to fit shops below. The Palace reopened on May 28, 2024, with a Ben Platt concert run. The auditorium has been a city interior landmark since July 14, 1987; the exterior was left out of that designation.
Kirchhoff & Rose, the Milwaukee firm behind most of Beck's Orpheum theaters, designed the Palace with James J. F. Gavigan as associate architect; it was apparently the firm's only big New York job. The style is Baroque with Beaux-Arts touches, with ornament in deep plaster relief.
The 44-foot proscenium is edged with acanthus leaves, and a child's face peers from the cartouche at its keystone. A lyre marks the middle of the curved sounding board above. Corner pendentives hold up a wide cove, with putti at its front, framing a shallow central dome. Masks ornament the balcony fronts, and on the upper level five curved boxes climb each side wall. The original 1913 scheme was ivory and bronze, lit by a chandelier 14 feet wide.
Ralph Alswang's restoration of 1965 and 1966 uncovered ironwork, marble balustrades and a sculpted lobby ceiling hidden under later wall coverings, enlarged the pit and flattened the sloping vaudeville stage. The 2018 to 2024 rebuild, with interiors by Platt Byard Dovell White, restored the plaster and the original chandelier, took out the 1930s projection booth and added soundproofing. The entrance moved to 47th Street, under a marquee, with escalators up to the orchestra lobby.
An elevator links every level. Wheelchair spaces are in the orchestra, rear mezzanine and balcony (one wheelchair place and up to three companions per order), and aisle seats with fold-up armrests exist on all three levels. Restrooms without barriers are on floors 2 through 6, and orchestra rows C to H hold seats for guests with low vision or hearing loss.
Assistive listening headsets are free; audio description and handheld captioning devices are offered while available, and the GalaPro app delivers both to your phone. Staff can escort guests from the lobby to accessible areas, and service animals are welcome. Children under 5 are not admitted.
1,648 seats
Enter at 160 West 47th Street, in the TSX Broadway building where Seventh Avenue meets 47th Street, facing Duffy Square; the historic address is 1564 Broadway.
The nearest subway is 49th Street (N, R, W; Q late nights). An uptown-only stair sits inside TSX Broadway beneath the theater, and the downtown stairs are across 47th Street on its north side. Only the uptown platform has an elevator, at 49th Street.
Also close: 47th-50th Streets-Rockefeller Center (B, D, F, M), 50th Street (1), 50th Street (C, E) and the accessible Times Square-42nd Street and Port Authority complex (1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R, W, S, A, C, E). Luggage and bags over 20 by 14 by 9 inches are not allowed.
Open in Apple Maps (opens in a new tab)Open in Google Maps (opens in a new tab)
The closest Broadway houses to the Palace Theatre. Walking times are straight-line estimates.
.jpg){kind=link}
