The cast of Cabaret takes a final bow at the closing night performance at Studio 54.

Musicals in a disco? Assassins follows Cabaret with a bang-up production in Studio 54, Roundabout’s newest piece of real estate.

Who could have predicted that Cabaret would become the second longest-running Broadway musical revival when in 1998, in what seemed like a stroke of bad luck, a Times Square construction accident closed Roundabout’s mega-hit for three months, forcing it to leave the Henry Miller Theatre? Now, it seems a stroke of great fortune. That’s because Roundabout’s search for a new venue led to Studio 54, the infamous 1970s disco. It proved to be the perfect spot for Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall’s racy, decadent revival. In fact, the space worked so well that Roundabout just completed the purchase of the historic venue outright, thanks to the generosity of Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (see photos from the event celebrating this milestone).

Assassins, which begins performances in March, will be playing in a house with lots of history. Studio 54 was actually built as a legitimate theatre called the Gallo Opera House in 1927. When Puccini’s classic La Boheme flopped, the theatre went legit and presented Sophocles’ Electra, starring Antoinette Perry, for whom the Tony Awards are named. After the great crash of 1929, the theatre was renamed The New Yorker. A string of eight flops later, it became a night club known as the Casino de Paris. It returned to its theatrical roots in 1937 when the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project had a bona fide hit with The Swing Mikado. CBS acquired the property in 1942, and used it as a radio studio. In the 1950s and ‘60s, the theatre had its greatest claim to fame as the television studio home to The $64,000 Question, Password, and To Tell the Truth, among many other quiz shows.

A tremendous amount of work was needed to transform the Studio 54 discothèque into shape for Cabaret, even though Mendes wanted the space to look like a dilapidated theatre (which it was). The current cabaret-like setting at Studio 54 will remain for the upcoming production of Assassins. With the help of family and friends, Roundabout’s vision for the future of this space is to create a perfect home for musical revivals to ensure that this great American art form remains a permanent part of New York’s cultural life. Once Assassins completes its run, planned improvements will return this wonderful theatre to its original splendor, and will improve both technical capacity and visitor amenities. —Ted Sod

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