NEW YORK — Lena Horne will make Black history again on The Great White Way this fall.
The trailblazing stage, screen and music star will become the first Black woman to have a Broadway theater named for her when the Nederlander Organization officially renames the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Nov. 1.
The 1,069 seat house, located on 256 West 47th St., is the current home of the Tony Award-winning musical “Six.”
The organization, which owns nine Broadway theaters, announced Wednesday it will host a formal re-christening ceremony in front of the venue that will include special performances, remarks, the new marquee unveiling and a block party featuring a DJ.
Built in 1925, the venue was originally named the Mansfield Theatre, before being used as CBS TV studio. In 1960, it was renamed to honor Pulitzer Prize winning theater critic Brooks Atkinson, who died in 1984.
In June, when it was first announced, James L. Nederlander of The Nederlander Organization said that Horne “became a part of our family over the years” and that it was his “privilege, honor, and duty to memorialize [her] for generations to come.”
Known for films such as “Stormy Weather,” “Cabin in the Sky” and “The Wiz,” Horne, who died in 2010 at age 92, was also recognized as a civil rights activist.
The former Cotton Club chorus girl was already history maker on Broadway, as the first Black woman ever to be nominated for a Tony Award for leading actress in a musical for her performance in 1957′s “Jamaica.” With the 1981 revue, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” the Brooklyn native was the recipient of a Special Tony Award and two Grammy Awards. Horne’s other Broadway credits included “Dance With Your Gods,” “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939,” and “Tony & Lena Sing.”
Nederlander’s father was one of the lead producers of the acclaimed one-woman show, which played at the family’s namesake theatre for a year-long run before airing nationally on PBS years later.
The theater’s name change follows a pledge made to Black Theater United by Broadway’s three major landlords, who each agreed to rename at least one of its Broadway houses for a Black theater luminary.
The Shubert Organization unveiled the James Earl Jones Theatre (previously the Cort Theatre) on Sept. 12. The Jujamcyn Theaters had already renamed the Virginia Theatre for the late, Pulitzer-winning playwright August Wilson in 2005.
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