Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre to be renamed for LENA HORNE

Photo credit: Martha Swope

The Brooks Atkinson Theatre, currently home to Six on Broadway, will be renamed after late star and activist Lena Horne, making the theatre the first Broadway venue named after a Black woman.

An agreement made last year between Black Theater United and the three major Broadway landlords was that at least one each of their theaters would be named for a Black artist. Jujamcyn has a venue named for the playwright August Wilson, with the Shubert Organisation announcing recently that the Cort Theatre will be renamed for James Earl Jones. The Nederlander Organization will be renaming their Brooks Atkinson for Horne.

Lena Horne was an American Grammy-winning singer, actress, dancer, and civil rights activist. Her career began as a nightclub performer before moving onto Hollywood. She appeared in five Broadway shows, becoming the first African American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Jamaica in 1958. In the 1980s, she starred in the one-woman show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for over 300 performances. She was given a Special Tony Award for the role. She continued to work in television, film, and recording in a career that spanned over 70 years.

Horne was also an advocate for human rights, who frequently participated in protests and fought against racism in the entertainment industry. She attended the March on Washington and participated in campaigns to pass anti-lynching laws.

Horne passed away in 2010 at the age of 92.