3. Richard Rodgers Theatre
Richard Rodgers Theatre, located at 226 West 46th Street, is a 1,319-seat theater that has housed 11 Tony Award-winning Best Plays and Best Musicals, more than any other Broadway theater. The theater was built by Irwin Chanin, an Art Deco architect who designed theaters such as The Majestic with his construction company. It opened in December 1925, and it was renamed the 46th Street Theatre in 1931. After a number of shifts in ownership, including at one point by real estate investor Robert W. Dowling, the Nederlander Organization purchased the structure and renamed it Richard Rodgers Theatre in honor of the legendary composer of 43 musicals.
The theater was notably the first to use the Chanin seating plan, in which all guests entered through one entrance and took a series of steps inside to get to their seat, as opposed to separate entrances for higher and lower levels. Notable productions at the theater have included Guys and Dolls, Damn Yankees, 1776, Lost in Yonkers, and In the Heights. It has also been the theater for Hamilton since 2015, which won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Musical and 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Hamilton reopened on September 14 to a full house.