A fire broke out Wednesday at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on West 49th Street in Manhattan and was upgraded from a two-alarm fire to a three-alarm fire as FDNY units battled the blaze in the six-story building.
A social media post tied to the scene said no injuries were reported.
The theater, at 230 West 49th Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, is home to The Book of Mormon on Broadway. For nearly 15 years, the show has been the resident production at the Eugene O'Neill, a Broadway house with a history that reaches back to November 24, 1925, when it opened as the Forrest Theatre with Mayflowers as its inaugural production.
The venue was renamed the Coronet in 1945 after a renovation, rechristened the Eugene O'Neill in 1959, and became the first Broadway house named after a playwright. Neil Simon acquired the theater in the late 1960s and staged The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite and The Prisoner of Second Avenue there before Jujamcyn bought the venue in 1982.
The fire adds an abrupt break to a theater that has spent most of its recent history on one long run. The immediate question now is how long the Broadway house can be kept out of service before the damage, and the disruption to a production that has filled it since March 24, 2011, become clear.
