Question: What's the biggest theater in the United States?

Gershwin Theatre



The Gershwin Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 51st Street in midtown-Manhattan in the Paramount Plaza building. The theatre is named after brothers George Gershwin, a composer, and Ira Gershwin, a lyricist. It has the  largest seating capacity of any Broadway theatre with 1,933 seats, host to large musical productions.[2] The Gershwin has been home to the blockbuster musical Wicked since 2003.
History and Architecture
Designed in an modernist Art Nouveau style by set designer Ralph Alswang, it is situated on the lower levels of a towering office complex built at an estimated cost of $12.5 million[3] on the site of the historical Capitol Theatre. Escalators lead from the street level through-block passageway entrance to the expansive lobby, home to The American Theatre Hall of Fame. With a 65-foot wide adjustable proscenium arch and 80-foot wide stage, it is one of the largest Broadway stages, ideal for very large musical productions.[4] A large orchestra with stadium seating, and mezzanine fill the expansive auditorium. It opened as the Uris Theatre on November 28, 1972 (named for the building developer Uris Buildings Corporation) with the musical Via Galactica starring Raul Julia. It proved to be an inauspicious start for the venue, with the first show to lose a million dollars closing after only seven performances. From 1974-76 it served as a concert hall for limited engagements by a number of legendary pop music and jazz performers, before it began to host large musical productions with Porgy and Bess in 1976. The venue was host to the Tony Awards in 1984, 92, 93, and 1999. During the 37th Tony Awards ceremony held June 5, 1983, the theatre was rechristened to honor the Gershwins.[5] The Gershwin was heavily modified for the Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Starlight Express in 1987, a massive production costing over $8 million. Starlight would go on to run nearly 800 performances at the Gershwin.[6]
Notable productions
1972: Via Galactica
1973: Seesaw; Gigi
1974: Sammy Davis, Jr.; Andy Williams with Michel Legrand; Johnny Mathis; Anthony Newley with Henry Mancini; Queen (first Rock band to play Broadway, in support of Mott the Hoople); The 5th Dimension; Raphael
1975: Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie
1975: Fonteyn & Nureyev on Broadway
1976: D'Oyly Carte Opera Company; Bing Crosby; Barry Manilow; Paul Anka; Al Green with Ashford & Simpson; Season of Gilbert and Sullivan
1976: Porgy and Bess, produced by the Houston Grand Opera
1977: The King and I
1979: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
1981: The Pirates of Penzance;My Fair Lady
1982: Annie
1983: Show Boat
1984: Shirley MacLaine on Broadway; Patti LaBelle on Broadway
1984: Cyrano de Bergerac; Much Ado About Nothing, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company
1985: Singin' in the Rain
1987: Starlight Express
1989: Barry Manilow Live on Broadway
1990: Meet Me in St. Louis
1990: Fiddler on the Roof
1991: Moscow Circus
1993: Raffi
1995: Show Boat
1997: Candide; 1776
2000: Riverdance on Broadway
2002: Oklahoma!
2003: Wicked
Box office record
Wicked set a box office record for the Gershwin Theatre. The production grossed $3,201,333 over nine performances for the week ending December 29, 2013. This was also the highest one-week box office gross income made by any show in Broadway history, until that time.[7]





 at the Internet Broadway Database