Samuel J Friedman Theatre

261 West 47th Street, New York, NY 10019

Samuel J Friedman Theatre Information, Shows and Tickets

Directions & Box Office

  • Directions: Take the A, C, E or 1, 2, 3, 7, N, R, S subway to 42nd Street . Walk north on Broadway to 47th Street.
  • Entrance: 47th Street between 8th Avenue and Broadway The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre is located on 47th Street between 8th Avenue and Broadway.
  • Box Office Hours:
    Monday:
    12pm - 6pm
    Tuesday & Wednesday:
    12pm – 7:30pm
    Thursday, Friday & Saturday:
    12 – 8:30pm
    Sunday:
    10am – 6pm
    On matinee days, the box office opens at 10am:

Best Seats In The House

  • Seats: 650

With the renovations completed in 2003, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre now only holds 650 seats, from the 1000 seats that used to be in this theatre.

With the front mezzanine now having the best viewing lines of the stage, though there are very few obstructed views in the house.
As with most small Broadway theatres, sightlines and acoustics are great from nearly every seat in the house.

Samuel J Friedman Theatre Seating Chart

Samuel J Friedman Theatre Seating Chart

Parking for Samuel J Friedman Theatre

The closest parking garages for Samuel J Friedman Theatre are located at:

Central Parking System
257 West 47th Street
New York, NY 10036
212-246-2371
Icon Parking Systems
235 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
212-245-9421

The closest parking is not always the best as it often takes longer to park and retrieve your vehicle as fellow theatre goers have the same idea. A better choice of parking may be the second choice or further away by a couple of Avenues.

Additional Notes

Landlord: Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC)

Official Ticketer: Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC)

Notes:

Formerly the Biltmore Theatre.

Elevator: Yes

Escalator: No

Disabled Access Notes:

An elevator is located to the right of the box office with access to all levels of the theatre.

However, there are still some small stairs located in the aisles. To avoid these, purchase a ticket in Row P or Q in the Orchestra, Row AA in the Premier Circle, or Row F in the Mezzanine.

Motorized lifts are also available for those who have trouble with the small stairs.

Upcoming Shows

Mary Jane

  • Previews Begin: April 2, 2024
  • Opens: April 23, 2024
  • Show Closes: June 2, 2024
A single mother in an impossible situation when her daughter contracts a serious illness, finds the challenge insurmountable until she turns to her makeshift family to guidance and strength to …more
Get Tickets

Previous Shows

Prayer for the French Republic

  • Opened: January 9, 2024
  • Show Closed: March 3, 2024
Joshua Harmon's gorgeous multigenerational drama explores one family's relationship to faith, history and safety from a global perspective. …more

Jaja's African Hair Braiding

  • Opened: October 3, 2023
  • Show Closed: November 19, 2023
Jaja’s bustling hair braiding salon in Harlem has a lively group of West African immigrant hair braiders that create hair masterpieces, but events force this tight-knit community to confront what …more

Summer, 1976

  • Opened: April 25, 2023
  • Show Closed: June 18, 2023
Set during the US Bicentennial celebrations in Ohio in 1976, the play examines the friendship between Diana, a talented artist and single mom, and Alice, a free-spirited yet naïve young …more

The Collaboration

  • Opened: December 20, 2022
  • Show Closed: February 11, 2023
Based on a true event where the elder art-statesmen Andy Warhol and the young-upstart Jean-Michel Basquiat, collaborate on a new art exhibition that opens up old wounds that have very …more

Cost of Living

  • Opened: October 3, 2022
  • Show Closed: November 6, 2022
Pulitzer Prize winning play that explores disability and caregiving and the loss and total cost to people and society at large. What it really costs to survive. …more

How I Learned to Drive

  • Opened: April 19, 2022
  • Show Closed: June 12, 2022
A woman analyzes her childhood and recalls old painful family memories. Her Uncle taught her how to drive, but also sexually abused her. …more

Skeleton Crew

  • Opened: January 26, 2022
  • Show Closed: February 20, 2022
Play set in the Detroit automotive industry during the 2008 financial crisis where the line between blue collar and white collar workers becomes blurred. …more

Lackawanna Blues

  • Opened: September 28, 2021
  • Show Closed: November 12, 2021
Set in a 1950s blues-era boarding house outside Buffalo, New York, the matriarch welcomes all, but receives a considerable shock as a turn of events turns things sour. …more

My Name is Lucy Barton

  • Opened: January 15, 2020
  • Show Closed: March 1, 2020
Based on the 2016 novel of the same name, this solo performance retells one woman's forgotten childhood stories of trauma and the attempt to unlock her mind to find the …more

The Height of the Storm

  • Opened: September 24, 2019
  • Show Closed: November 24, 2019
A family is shocked when a seemingly happy couple of 50 years hits the rocks at full speed …more

Ink

  • Opened: April 24, 2019
  • Show Closed: July 7, 2019
Ink is the brilliant true story of billionaire Richard Murdoch's rise to success. In 1969 Murdoch was just beginning to build his media empire in London when he acquired a …more

Choir Boy

  • Opened: January 22, 2019
  • Show Closed: March 10, 2019
Choir Boy transports audiences to Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys, whose mission is to educate and shape strong, ethical black men. …more

The Nap

  • Opened: September 27, 2018
  • Show Closed: November 11, 2018
The Nap centers on the world of snooker, the British version of billiards. Dylan Spokes is the young, fast-rising star of the snooker world. Before a pivotal tournament, Dylan is …more

Saint Joan

  • Opened: April 25, 2018
  • Show Closed: June 10, 2018
When George Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan for its first Broadway production in 1923, it was just three years after her canonization as a Roman Catholic Saint. Joan of Arc …more

The Children

  • Opened: December 14, 2017
  • Show Closed: February 4, 2018
The Children is a new play by the British playwright Lucy Kirkwood, which premiered to success at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The story takes place in a remote …more

Prince of Broadway

  • Opened: August 24, 2017
  • Show Closed: October 29, 2017
The new musical Prince of Broadway is a showcase of highlights from Prince’s expansive career, including re-imagined segments from many of the shows he has produced and/or directed. With a …more

The Little Foxes

  • Opened: April 19, 2017
  • Show Closed: July 2, 2017
The Little Foxes is a classic of 20th century American drama. Written by Lillian Hellman, the play premiered on Broadway in 1939 starring Tallulah Bankhead as the lead part, Regina …more

Jitney

  • Opened: January 19, 2017
  • Show Closed: March 12, 2017
Jitney is the eighth play in August Wilson’s 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle,” which also includes such works as Fences, Radio Golf, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Seven Guitars, Joe Turner’s Come and …more

Heisenberg

  • Opened: October 13, 2016
  • Show Closed: December 11, 2016
Heisenberg is a play by Simon Stephens, which premiered last year Off-Broadway in a Manhattan Theatre Club production. The story deals with the relationship between a woman and an older …more

The Father

  • Opened: April 14, 2016
  • Show Closed: June 19, 2016
The Father follows Andre, an 88 year-old man who is showing the first signs of a degenerative mental disorder. His daughter Anne is preoccupied with her inheritance. As he loses …more

Our Mother's Brief Affair

  • Opened: January 20, 2016
  • Show Closed: March 6, 2016
Our Mother's Brief Affair is an incisive look into a family drama, wherein the matriarch of a family is dying, and her children discover another side to their mother altogether. …more

Fool For Love

  • Opened: October 8, 2015
  • Show Closed: December 13, 2015
Fool For Love takes place in a motel in the Mojave Desert in the 1980s, where a young woman named May is hiding out. Soon, an old lover of hers, …more

Airline Highway

  • Opened: April 23, 2015
  • Show Closed: June 7, 2015
Airline Highway is a dark comedy about a gathering of friends in Louisiana in a dilapidated motel’s parking lot. The show explores the tribulations of a rag-tag clique living within …more

Constellations

  • Opened: January 13, 2015
  • Show Closed: March 15, 2015
In Constellations, Roland (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Marianne (Ruth Wilson) have their first encounter. The piece then explores the boundless potential of a relationship from the first moments, touching of themes …more

The Country House

  • Opened: October 2, 2014
  • Show Closed: November 9, 2014
The Country House takes place in a Berkshire home during the Williamstown summer theatre festival, as a group of actors reckon with their art, fame, and relationships with one another. …more

Samuel J Friedman Theatre History

The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, known for many years as the Biltmore, has one of the more interesting histories of the theaters on Broadway.

First Shows

In 1926, the opening show at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, back when it was called the Biltmore Theatre, was Owen Davis’ Easy Come, Easy Go, though it was not the show’s opening night. Subsequent notable productions included My Sister Eileen, No Exit, The Heiress, Barefoot in the Park, Loot, and Hair. Since reopening in 2003 with Richard Greenberg’s play The Violet Hour, the theater has hosted such new dramas as Rabbit Hole, Mauritius, Time Stands Still, The Pitmen Painters, and Good People.

Theatre Changes Hands

In the midst of the 1929 Depression, the venue's owners, the Chanin brothers, lost the Biltmore to the Federal Theatre Project, where shows for entertainment were replaced with shows for news content.

A few years later, the theatre was bought by the film studio at Warner Brothers to be used as a vehicle for displaying the work of George Abbott, who was an American theater producer and director, playwright and screenwriter. In the movies Abbott was also a film director and producer whose career spanned eight decades.

Becomes TV and Radio Studio

The Biltmore was leased to CBS in 1952 for use as a TV and radio studio, returning to a legitimate theater about a decade later. The Biltmore stood dark for years after a fire in the late '80s and was finally was bought by James Nederlander and Stewart Lane in 1993.

Manhattan Theatre Club Takes Ownership

Eventually the non-profit Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), which took over the Biltmore Theatre as a Broadway venue for their productions, began a $35 million renovation of the theater, finally reopening it to the public in October 2003. The Biltmore was re-named the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in 2008.

Samuel J Friedman Theatre Design

Constructed in 1925, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (formerly called the Biltmore) was built by the Chanin brothers, who used famed architect of the era Herbert Krappto design it. The original Biltmore Theatre was built with approximately 1000 seats and a single balcony. When renovated, the number of seats in the theater was reduced to 650, creating a more spacious feel for each patron. The Biltmore Theatre’s interior had been made a New York City landmark just prior to its devastating fire in 1987.