The Shubert Organization announced Nov. 18 that all currently running productions at New World Stages, Avenue Q, Gazillion Bubble Show, Blank! The Musical and iLuminate, will continue under the agreement. The five theatres at New World Stages range in size from 199 to 499 seats.

As previously reported, the Shuberts were expected to spend seven figures to take over New World Stages. The news was reported this summer that the organization planned to purchase the complex.

It is expected that the move will create opportunity for the Shubert Organization to transfer fading Broadway shows into the Off-Broadway venue. 

New World Stages, whose space was once a movie complex, has five theatres of various sizes and has been in operation since 2004. It has served as a home to Broadway shows moving to smaller spaces, such as Avenue Q, Peter and the Starcatcher and Million Dollar Quartet — all shows that once had a Broadway shelf life.  

It was also reported that the company has purchased the former H.B. Day Warehouse at 604-606 West 48th Street, between 11th Avenue and the West Side Highway, and planned to build a state-of-the-art, 1,500-seat Broadway theatre between West 45th and 46th streets. The Shuberts built Off-Broadway's Little Shubert Theatre in 2002.

The other theatres the company owns are the Ambassador (Chicago), the Barrymore (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), the Belasco (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), the Booth (The Elephant Man), the Broadhurst (Mamma Mia!), the Broadway (Cinderella), the Cort (This Is Our Youth), the Golden (A Delicate Balance), the Imperial (Les Misérables), the Bernard B. Jacobs (Once), the Longacre (You Can't Take It With You), the Lyceum (Disgraced), the Majestic (The Phantom of the Opera), the Music Box (Pippin), the Gerald Schoenfeld (It's Only a Play), the Shubert (Matilda the Musical) and the Winter Garden (recent home of Rocky).

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