page_title: List of Broadway theaters
section_title: Pre-musical
hierarchical_section_title: List of Broadway theaters / Demolished Broadway theaters / Pre-musical
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Park Row and the second Park Theatre, Manhattan, New York City, 1830
context_page_description: There are 41 active Broadway theaters listed by The Broadway League in New York City, as well as 9 existing structures that previously hosted Broadway theatre. Beginning with the first large long-term theater in the city, the Park Theatre built in 1798 on Park Row just off Broadway, the definition of what constitutes a Broadway theater has changed multiple times. The current legal definition is based on a 1949 Actors' Equity agreement with smaller theaters in New York to allow union members to perform, dividing theater spaces in the city into the system of Broadway and Off-Broadway seen today. Current union contracts clearly spell out if a production is "Broadway" or not, but the general rule is that any venue that mostly hosts legitimate theater productions, is generally within Manhattan's Theater District, and has a capacity over 500 seats is considered a Broadway theater. Previous to this legal demarcation a Broadway production simply referred to a professional theatrical production performed in a theater in Manhattan, and the theaters that housed them were called Broadway theaters.
context_section_description: Before the advent of the musical there were multiple theaters in New York that claimed the moniker of "Broadway", including an 1847 theater named the Broadway Theatre. While most early theaters were short-lived and housed touring productions from Europe, that changed with the construction of the Park Theatre in 1798. These newly-constructed, long-term theaters grew in number through the nineteenth century, clustered around Broadway, and began hosting a wide array of ethnic and new forms of entertainment. The following list notes all theaters that have housed Broadway productions between the beginning of theater in New York City and the opening of  The Black Crook.
caption: The Park Theatre and surrounding neighborhood c. 1830
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