The Lyceum and the New Amsterdam are the oldest theaters on Broadway; the Lyceum, built in 1903, has the further distinction of being the oldest continually operating theater and the first to obtain landmark status.

The architects Herts & Tallant created innovative cantilevered balconies that obviated the need for posts or other structural encumbrances. They were also interested in the auditorium’s lighting effects and installed bare bulbs throughout the interior plasterwork rather than a chandelier, which gives the interior a golden glow. The lobby is decorated with murals by James Wall Finn that celebrate Sarah Siddons and David Garrick, stars of eighteenth-century theater in the United Kingdom.

The theater was built by Daniel Frohman, a Broadway pioneer and one of the first impresarios to move a theater north to the Times Square area. He partnered with his brother Charles on many productions until Charles’s drowning on the Lusitania in 1915. Frohman maintained an apartment above the theater; a small door on the north wall of the dining room provided a view of the stage below. Today the apartment houses the Shubert archives.