Broadway theatre, Theater district in Manhattan, US.
This theater district brings together 41 venues with more than 500 seats each, spread across the city map between Times Square and Lincoln Center in Manhattan. The buildings line the cross streets, some with illuminated facades, others with classical porticos, and together they form a quarter where dozens of performances take place at the same time every evening.
The first theater performances in Manhattan were staged in 1750 by Thomas Kean and Walter Murray in a small hall with 280 seats on Nassau Street. Over the following centuries, the number of stages grew along Broadway and its side streets, until the present theater landscape stabilized after World War II.
Each performance is greeted by audiences with spontaneous applause when a curtain rises or a familiar song begins, and these shared reactions create a lively atmosphere among the seats. After shows, many visitors gather outside stage doors to collect autographs or exchange a few words with performers, a habit that has remained a fixed ritual for decades.
Most performances begin in the evening around eight from Tuesday to Saturday, while additional matinees are offered on Wednesday afternoons and weekends depending on the schedule. Since the theaters are scattered across the quarter, it is worth checking the exact location of each house beforehand to avoid unnecessary walks shortly before the start.
Only three of the 41 theaters are actually located directly on Broadway, while the remaining 38 houses are situated on the numbered cross streets between West 41st and West 65th. This distribution often surprises visitors, because the name of the street does not reflect the entire location of the stages.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
