The most prominent part of the facade is a curved entrance at the southeast corner, facing Broadway, where a lobby leads to the rear of the theater's orchestra level.

The Shuberts developed the Ambassador, along with the neighboring O'Neill and Walter Kerr theaters, after World War I as part of a theatrical complex around 48th and 49th Streets.

The Ambassador Theatre is on 219 West 49th Street, on the north sidewalk between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City.

The Ambassador shares the block with the St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church to the west, The Theater Center to the northeast, and the Brill Building to the east.

[5] Similar to Krapp's earlier Broadhurst and Plymouth theaters, the Ambassador Theatre has a curved corner at the eastern portion of the facade, facing Broadway.

[15] Due to the small site dimensions, the auditorium is oriented on a diagonal axis to increase seating capacity,[10][12][16] with the stage to the northwest and the lobby to the southeast.

[18] The side walls (near the boxes) are decorated in the Adam style, with fan shapes inside arches, which in turn are augmented by motifs such as swags.

[34] Its initial operettas included Al Goodman and Sigmund Romberg's The Lady in Ermine in 1922,[43][44][45] as well as an American version of Eduard Künneke's Caroline the next year featuring Tessa Kosta.

[49][50][51] Laurence Schwab and Frank Mandel signed a two-year lease for the Ambassador in June 1926, with plans to renovate the theater and stage their own plays inside.

[52][53] Subsequently, Queen High ran for 367 performances[49][54] after its opening in September 1926,[54][55] and Bartlett Cormack staged The Racket late the next year.

[62] The following decade started with another transfer, the long-running prison drama The Last Mile, in 1930;[63][64] Blossom Time was revived for a brief run the next year.

[77] Later that year, the 1939 version of The Straw Hat Revue was presented at the Ambassador,[78][79] while the theater was still being used as a radio broadcast studio.

[81][82] The New York Grand Opera Company performed at the theater in September 1941,[83][84] and the Ambassador was leased to real-estate operator Irving Maidman two months later.

[85][86] The Ambassador returned to showing legitimate productions that November with Cuckoos on the Hearth, which transferred from the Mansfield Theatre.

[87][88] Central Hanover Bank & Trust acquired the Ambassador in January 1942 and resold it to J. Arthur Fischer that June in an all-cash transaction.

[91] However, the revue was closed three months later because it was "indecent", namely violating ordinances against obscenities;[92][93] under the orders of the mayoral administration of Fiorello La Guardia, the Ambassador lost its license to operate as a legitimate theater.

[94][95] The Ambassador's theatrical license was restored in August 1943,[96] just before the opening of a third and final revival of Blossom Time, which ran only 47 performances.

[104] That August, DuMont Television Network signed a five-year lease for the Ambassador and immediately began remodeling it for use as a broadcast studio.

[6] In 1957, the Ambassador hosted Eugenia with Tallulah Bankhead;[113][114] a transfer of the long-running The Diary of Anne Frank;[95][115] and the murder drama Compulsion with Dean Stockwell, Roddy McDowall, and Ina Balin.

[87][116][117] This was followed in 1958 by a limited run of Back to Methuselah with Faye Emerson and Tyrone Power,[87][118][119] as well as Comes a Day with Judith Anderson and George C. Scott (the latter in his Broadway debut).

[121][122][123] The long-running Paddy Chayefsky play The Tenth Man transferred from the Booth Theatre in 1961,[124][125] ending its two-year run at the Ambassador.

[141][142][143] The Ambassador ended the decade with runs of Joseph Heller's We Bombed in New Haven in 1968[141][144][145] and Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's Celebration in 1969.

[152] The Ambassador also hosted Melvin Van Peebles's musical Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death in 1971,[153][154][155] as well as a revival of Scapino with Jim Dale in 1974.

[156][157][158] The Ambassador hosted three solo productions in the mid-1970s:[6] Me and Bessie with Linda Hopkins (1975);[159][160] I Have a Dream with Billy Dee Williams (1976);[159][161] and Miss Margarida's Way with Estelle Parsons (1977).

[172][173][174] Afterward, Herman van Veen performed the one-man show All of Him in 1982,[175][176] and a revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge was staged in 1983.

In a concession to theatrical owners, the Board of Estimate refused to ratify designations of theaters if these were made solely on cultural grounds.

[206][207] The Ambassador's last productions of the 1990s were You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in February 1999 with Kristin Chenoweth and Roger Bart,[206][208][209] as well as It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues that September.

[212][213] The next year, the Ambassador hosted A Class Act[214][215] and Hedda Gabler,[216][217] the latter of which opened during a downturn in the Broadway industry caused by the September 11 attacks.

[223][c] As part of a settlement with the United States Department of Justice in 2003, the Shuberts agreed to improve disabled access at their 16 landmarked Broadway theaters, including the Ambassador.

[227] Chicago broke the theater's box-office record several times during its run, most recently during the week ending January 1, 2023, when the musical grossed $1,299,400.