A fire broke out Monday in the Broadway theater that hosts \u201cThe Book of Mormon,\u201d forcing the long-running musical to close, at least temporarily, as the historic venue undergoes repairs.<\/p>\n
The blaze, which began in an electrical room, caused \u201csubstantial damage\u201d to the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, according to New York Fire Department Assistant Chief David Simms. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has been safely removed from the theater,\u201d the theater\u2019s owner, ATG Entertainment, said in a statement. \u201cWe will keep all parties abreast of this developing situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t immediately clear how long the 1,108-seat theater would be out of operation. A spokesperson for \u201cThe Book of Mormon\u201d did not immediately respond to messages. The show\u2019s next scheduled performance is Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Simms said the damage was largely confined to the fourth floor area and a backroom containing lighting equipment and dangling chandeliers. There was some water damage as well, he said.<\/p>\n
Firefighters initially struggled to knock down the flames due to catwalks and rigging in the theater, but were eventually able to bring it under control, he said. One firefighter suffered minor injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Book of Mormon\u201d is among Broadway\u2019s longest running shows, with more than 5,000 performances since opening at the Eugene O\u2019Neill Theatre in 2011.<\/p>\n
The theater, which opened in 1925, has previously hosted productions of \u201cSweeney Todd,\u201d a revival of Tennessee Williams\u2019 \u201cCat on a Hot Tin Roof,\u201d and the rock musical \u201cSpring Awakening,\u201d among many other performances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fire broke out Monday in the Broadway theater that hosts \u201cThe Book of Mormon,\u201d forcing the long-running…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[472,387,25,118,157,75,9,24,12,63,308,122,124,123,27],"class_list":["post-219704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-app-arts-entertainment","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-associated-press","tag-entertainment","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}