A smoky fire damaged a wall adjacent to the mezzanine of Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre February 10.
Workers in the Shubert Archive on the second floor above the performing space told Playbill.com they heard a fire alarm and smelled smoke late Friday afternoon and called firefighters. Trucks from two nearby fire departments converged at the theatre on West 45th Street east of Times Square and quickly extinguished the blaze. No one was injured.
A spokesman for the Shubert Organization, which owns the 114-year-old playhouse (one of Broadway’s oldest), said the fire appears to have started in an electrical panel adjacent to the mezzanine. The theatre, which was recently occupied by Oh, Hello on Broadway, is currently untenanted. The Play That Goes Wrong is scheduled to begin previews there March 9.
There appeared to be damage to the wall surrounding a doorway on the house-left side of the theatre and the adjacent hallway. The extent of the damage was still being measured, but the Shubert spokesman said it appeared to be minor and would not likely affect the planned load-in of the next show.
Less than an hour after the fire was extinguished there was still a slight smell of smoke inside the theatre. Trucks from Ladder Companies 2, 4, and 24 and Engine Companies 54 and 65 lined West 45th Street and the east side of Times Square.
