In 1930 your McCarter Theatre Center opened on the Princeton University campus in New Jersey with the Triangle Club's 40th show. This building was raised as a permanent home for the Princeton University Triangle Club with funds from Thomas N. McCarter, class of 1888, and it opened on February 21, 1930 with a special performance of the 40th annual Triangle show, The Golden Dog. Picture a young Joshua Logan as a junior in that cast, and a sophomore named James Stewart in the chorus — both later to win international fame.
McCarter’s legacy stretches back to those first performances in 1930 and forward: it is a two-time Tony Award winner and was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1963. In the 1930s the theatre became a favored pre‑Broadway showcase, prized for its large seating capacity, its 40-foot proscenium stage, and its short distance from New York. Premieres you can still imagine here include Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You, and William Inge’s Bus Stop — plays that first lived on this stage.
Notice the theatre's entrance and the campus beyond it.