Opened as the Martin Beck Theater in 1924, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including three big hits: The Voice of the Turtle, Grand Hotel, and Guys and Dolls. “First Lady of the Theater” Katharine Cornell also appeared in six plays here. The venue was renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theater in 2005.

Opened as the Eltinge Theater in 1912, this venue was named for Broadway and vaudeville star Julian Eltinge, often considered one of the greatest female impersonators in history. While Eltinge never performed at this theater, a number of LGBT-associated plays were produced here until 1931, when it was converted into a burlesque house. The building is currently the AMC Empire 25 Theater.

Pictured on the far left, the Selwyn Theatre. Opened as the Selwyn Theater in 1918, this venue staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including, among others, W. Somerset Maugham, Beatrice Lillie, Noel Coward, and Cole Porter, during its brief history as a legitimate theater. After becoming a movie theater in 1934, the venue was renovated and reopened as the American Airlines Theater in 2000.

Opened as the Apollo Theater in 1920, this venue is significant as the site of the first lesbian love scene depicted on Broadway with the staging of the Yiddish play The God of Vengeance (1923). Deemed immoral, the play’s entire cast and producer were arrested. The venue was renamed the New Apollo Theater in 1979. Today, only the theater’s facade remains.

Opened in 1907 as the Stuyvesant Theater and renamed the Belasco Theater in 1910, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Katharine Cornell, Guthrie McClintic, Alexander Woolcott, Tallulah Bankhead, Adrian, Arthur Laurents, Oliver Smith, and Lorraine Hansberry, among others. In 1945, the Belasco Theater’s lesbian drama Trio was the last Broadway show impacted by the Wales Padlock Law, which was passed in 1927 and forbade the depiction of “sex perversion” onstage, including gay or lesbian characters.

Opened in 1913, the Booth Theater has been associated with major LGBT performers and creators that include Jill Esmond, Noel Coward, Thornton Wilder, Elisabeth Marbury, Tennessee Williams, Montgomery Clift, Oliver Smith, and Alvin Ailey, among others. The lesbian-themed play Girls in Uniform (1932) by Christa Winsloe was briefly staged here and told the story of a Prussian schoolgirl who grows attached to her teacher.

Opened in 1918, the Broadhurst Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including the play The Green Hat (1925-26), staged by Guthrie McClintic, starring Katharine Cornell, and featuring a closeted gay character. A sampling of other LGBT names associated with the Broadhurst include Vincent Price, Beatrice Lillie, Oliver Smith, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Eva La Gallienne, and Barbara Stanwyck.

Opened in 1924 as a motion picture/vaudeville house, the Broadway Theater began presenting legitimate theater in 1930. Major LGBT performers and creators associated with this venue include Raoul Pene Du Bois, Jerome Robbins, Mary Martin, Arthur Laurents, Irene Sharaff, Joel Grey, Linda Hopkins, and Yves Saint-Laurent, among others. The theater’s historic front facade was covered in 1991, but its large historic interior survives.

Opened as the Cort Theater in 1912, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Laurette Taylor, Ma Rainey, Clyde Fitch, Thornton Wilder, George Cukor, and Marlene Dietrich, among others. An early play with a gay character, even if rather subtle, was the 1930s production of The Green Bay Tree, in which Laurence Olivier played the spoiled ward of a gay foster-father.

Opened as Hammerstein’s Theater in 1927, this venue’s first production, Golden Dawn (1927-28), featured a young Archie Leach, who would later change his name to Cary Grant. As a television studio, it famously aired The Ed Sullivan Show, which, despite Sullivan’s purported homophobia, showcased many LGBT performers, including Charles Laughton, Liberace, Rudolf Nureyev, Moms Mabley, Paul Lynde, Johnny Mathis, and Ethel Waters. It was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater in 1967.

Opened in 1928, the Ethel Barrymore Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Noel Coward, Katharine Cornell, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Montgomery Clift, John Van Druten, and Cynthia Nixon, among others. Premiering here in 1959 was Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun, the first work on Broadway by an African-American woman and winner of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.

Opened as the Forrest Theater in 1926 and renamed the Coronet Theater in 1945 and the Eugene O’Neill Theater in 1959, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT creators and performers, including Anna May Wong, Arthur Laurents, Noel Coward, Rosie O’Donnell, Oliver Smith, Sandy Dennis, Tommy Tune, and Charles Nelson Reilly, among others. The first revival of the 1934 play The Children’s Hour, about a schoolgirl who accuses two teachers of being lesbians, was performed here in 1952-53.

Opened as the Plymouth Theater in 1918, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Oliver Smith, Roberta Maxwell, Claudette Colbert, Lanford Wilson, Cynthia Nixon, Spencer Tracy, Tallulah Bankhead, Anthony Perkins, and Mary Martin, among others. It was renamed the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in 2005.

Opened as the Little Theater in 1912, this venue, the smallest house on Broadway, has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT creators and performers, including Clyde Fitch, Rachel Crothers, George Cukor, Langston Hughes, Clara Ward, Noel Coward, and John Lee Beatty, among others. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the theater was home to two pioneering plays with gay themes: Albert Innaurato’s Gemini (1977) and Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy (1982). The venue was renamed the Helen Hayes Theater in 1983.

Opened in 1904, the Hudson Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT creators and performers, including W. Somerset Maugham, Oscar Wilde, Oliver Smith, Laurence Olivier, Barbara Stanwyck, and Eva Le Gallienne, among others. Two plays with gay male characters that appeared here included Whiteoaks (1938) and the 1963 revival of Strange Interlude (1928).

Opened in 1923, the Imperial Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Jerome Robbins, Joel Grey, Tom Eyen, Irene Sharaff, Michael Bennett, Mary Martin, Cole Porter, Alvin Ailey, and Leonard Bernstein, among others. The 1969 production of A Patriot for Me (1965) was based on the true story of Alfred Redl, a homosexual officer in the Austro-Hungarian intelligence service in the 1890s.

Opened in 1913, the Longacre Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Edith Head, Cyril Ritchard, Lorraine Hansberry, John Lee Beatty, Lanford Wilson, and Vincent Price, among others. The Terrence McNally play The Ritz (1975-76) was set in a Manhattan gay bathhouse that was loosely modeled after the Continental Baths on the Upper West Side.

Opened in 1913, the Longacre Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Edith Head, Cyril Ritchard, Lorraine Hansberry, John Lee Beatty, Lanford Wilson, and Vincent Price, among others. The Terrence McNally play The Ritz (1975-76) was set in a Manhattan gay bathhouse that was loosely modeled after the Continental Baths on the Upper West Side.

Opened in 1903, the Lyceum Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Oliver Smith, Clyde Fitch, Katharine Cornell, Billy Barnes, Eva Le Gallienne, Thornton Wilder, Elsie de Wolfe, and Alan Bates, among others. The two biggest hits at the Lyceum were The Gold Diggers (1919-21), with Lilyan Tashman, and Born Yesterday (1946-47), with Judy Holliday.

Opened in 1903, the Lyric Theater staged several productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Clyde Fitch, Cole Porter, and Sarah Bernhardt, among others, before becoming a movie theater in 1934 (the historic interior was demolished in 1996). The Mattachine Society of New York, an early gay rights group, held its meetings at Avlon Studios in this building from 1956-57, shortly after forming in December 1955.

Opened in 1927, the Majestic Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Mary Martin, Adrian, Irene Sharaff, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Cyril Ritchard, Florence Klotz, Oliver Smith, and Arthur Laurents, among others. A number of iconic musicals with LGBT associations also played here, including Carousel, South Pacific, The Music Man, Camelot, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, The Wiz, and 42nd Street.

Opened in 1920, the Music Box Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Ethel Waters, Irene Sharaff, Tom Hulce, Cole Porter, Tallulah Bankhead, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Laurents, Oliver Smith, Cesar Romero, and Marlon Brando, among others. The biggest hit at this theater with LGBT associations was Deathtrap (1978-82), with scenic design by William Ritman and with actor Victor Garber.

Opened as the National Theater in 1921 and renamed the Billy Rose Theater in 1959 and the Nederlander Theater in 1980, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Tallulah Bankhead, Ethel Waters, Noel Coward, W. Somerset Maugham, Guthrie McClintic, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Oliver Smith, and James Baldwin, among others. During its Tony Award-winning run at the Nederlander, the hit musical Rent (1996-2008), about a group of friends living in the East Village during the AIDS crisis, brought portrayals of LGBT characters and those living with HIV/AIDS to mainstream theater audiences.

Opened as the Alvin Theater in 1927 and renamed the Neil Simon Theater in 1983, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Cole Porter, Jerome Robbins, Raoul Pene Du Bois, Stephen Sondheim, Michael Bennett, Truman Capote, Marjorie Main, Mary Martin, and Noel Coward, among others. The play Lady in the Dark (1941), with costume design by Irene Sharaff, featured actor Danny Kaye as a stereotypical gay character.

Opened in 1903, the New Amsterdam Theater has staged several productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Clyde Fitch, Erte, Patsy Kelly, the vaudeville team of Bert Savoy & Jay Brennan, Eva La Gallienne, and Marie Dressler, among others. The theater became a movie palace in 1937 and, since 1997, has been a legitimate theater for Disney productions.

Opened as the Theatre Republic in 1900, this venue staged two known works by gay playwrights, one by Clyde Fitch and the other by Roi Cooper Megrue. After being converted to burlesque in 1931 and a movie theater in 1942, it reopened as the New Victory Theater in 1995.

Opened in 1913 for vaudeville, and reopened as a legitimate theater in 1966, the Palace Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Sarah Bernhardt, Ethel Waters, Sophie Tucker, Harvey Fierstein, Tommy Tune, Michael Bennett, Joel Grey, and Bob Mackie, among others. The theater’s historic facade has been demolished.

Opened as the Chanin’s 46th Street Theater in 1924 and renamed the 46th Street Theater in 1932 and the Richard Rodgers Theater in 1990, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Charles Nelson Reilly, Fred Ebb, Cole Porter, Mary Martin, Patsy Kelly, Marc Blitzstein, Irene Sharaff, Joel Grey, and Nathan Lane, among others. From 1997-2003, the Tony Award-winning revival of Chicago ran here and included the LGBT contributions of Fred Ebb, John Kander, John Lee Beatty, William Ivey Long, and Joel Grey.

Opened in 1913, the Shubert Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Cole Porter, Michael Bennett, Fred Ebb, Joel Grey, Katharine Hepburn, Irene Sharaff, Jerome Robbins, Benjamin Britten, Raoul Pene Du Bois, Katharine Cornell, and Ethel Waters, among others. The Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Chorus Line (1975-90) had its Broadway premiere here and was directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett.

Opened as the Erlanger Theater in 1927 and renamed the St. James Theater in 1932, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Jerome Robbins, Florence Klotz, Oliver Smith, Cole Porter, Arthur Laurents, Nathan Lane, Laurence Olivier, Irene Sharaff, and Katharine Hepburn, among others. Three hugely successful musicals at the St. James with LGBT associations were Oklahoma! (1948), The King and I (1951-54), and Hello, Dolly! (1964-70).

Opened in 1918 as Henry Miller’s Theater, this venue has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and characters, including Noel Coward’s The Vortex (1925-26), in which he played a closeted gay man. After 1968, this building housed a movie theater (that also later showed gay male porn), followed by the Xenon nightclub, a disco, and the Kit Kat Klub. The theater interior was demolished in 2004, a new below-ground theater was built, and, in 2010, the venue was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theater.

In 1977, Studio 54 opened and became one of the world’s most famous discos with a fusion of gay, bisexual, and straight patrons. Owners Steven Rubell and Ian Schrager modeled the club after New York’s gay nightclubs, which were setting the trends for music and dance.

Opened in 1911, the Winter Garden Theater has staged multiple productions involving major LGBT performers and creators, including Vincente Minnelli, Erte, Beatrice Lillie, Irene Sharaff, Raoul Pene du Bois, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Linda Hopkins, Cecil Beaton, and Jerome Robbins, among others. Perhaps the most famous musical to play at the Winter Garden was West Side Story, which premiered here in 1957 and featured a creative team in which all of the major members were gay, lesbian, or bisexual.