The walls are decorated with wooden paneling with windows above, an unusual design for Broadway theaters, and there is an elliptical proscenium arch at the front of the auditorium.

Long-running productions have included Luv, Butterflies Are Free, That Championship Season, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, and The Elephant Man.

[11] The Booth adjoins six other theaters: the Majestic and Broadhurst to the southwest; the John Golden, Bernard B. Jacobs, and Gerald Schoenfeld to the west; and the Shubert to the south.

[20] Shubert Alley's presence not only allowed the theaters to meet fire regulations[21][22] but also enabled the structures to be designed as corner lots.

[24] The Broadhurst and Schoenfeld were also built as a pair, occupying land left over from the development of the Shubert and Booth; these too are designed with curved corners facing Broadway.

[27][28] The Shubert and Booth theaters are within separate buildings and differ in their interior designs and functions,[7][29] although they have adjacent stage areas near the center of the block.

[39] At ground level, the 45th Street elevation contains a tall water table of painted stone, above which is a band with rusticated blocks of terracotta.

[36] The brick section of the facade is surrounded by a stucco band of sgraffito decorations, which is painted beige and contains bas reliefs of classical-style foliate ornamentation.

The extreme left (east) and right (west) ends of the facade contain vertical sequences of terracotta quoins; they have Corinthian-style capitals that are decorated with motifs of griffins and shields.

[36] The stage house section (shared with the Shubert Theatre) is simpler in design, being made mainly of brick in English cross bond.

[29] Documents indicate that several architects were consulted for the theaters' design, including Clarence H. Blackall, before the Shuberts hired Henry B. Herts for the job.

[84] Further delays occurred when Ames requested several changes to the Booth's design in mid-1912; Herts said this would require the plans to be completely redone, while J. J. Shubert believed the changes were superficial.

[87] The theater opened on October 16 with the Arnold Bennett play The Great Adventure with Lyn Harding and Janet Beecher;[88][89] it closed after 52 performances.

[109][111][112] In 1920, the Booth hosted the melodrama The Purple Mask with Leo Ditrichstein;[113][114][115] the play Not So Long Ago with Eva Le Gallienne, Sidney Blackmer, and Thomas Mitchell;[116][117] and a dramatization of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper with Ruth Findlay and William Faversham.

A. Milne's play The Truth About Blayds opened at the theater in 1922, featuring O. P. Heggie, Leslie Howard, Frieda Inescort, and Ferdinand Gottschalk.

[133] Among the Booth's productions in 1925 were Horace Liveright's revival of Shakespeare's Hamlet with Basil Sydney and Helen Chandler,[129][134][135] as well as the comedy The Patsy with Claiborne Foster.

[129][137] The Booth finally had another hit in early 1927 with the Maxwell Anderson comedy Saturday's Children with Beulah Bondi, Ruth Gordon, and Roger Pryor,[129][138] which had 310 performances.

[172][173] George Kaufman and Moss Hart's You Can't Take It with You, with Josephine Hull and Henry Travers, premiered in December 1936[174][175] and stayed for 837 performances, winning a Pulitzer Prize.

[186][187] The Noël Coward comedy Blithe Spirit, featuring Mildred Natwick, Clifton Webb, and Peggy Wood, moved to the Booth in May 1942[188][189] and ran until the next June.

[201][202] Among the Booth's productions in 1947 were the Norman Krasna play John Loves Mary, which featured Tom Ewell, Nina Foch, and William Prince.

[206][207] James B. Allardice's At War with the Army was presented in 1949 with Gary Merrill,[208][209] and The Velvet Glove opened at the end of that year with Grace George and Walter Hampden.

[218][219] The Booth's next success was a ten-month run of Jerome Chodorov's Anniversary Waltz with Macdonald Carey and Kitty Carlisle, which had relocated from the Broadhurst, starting in late 1954.

[220][222] Gore Vidal's comedy Visit to a Small Planet opened the next February,[223][224] starring Cyril Ritchard and Eddie Mayehoff for a year.

[220][230] The play Julia, Jake and Uncle Joe with Claudette Colbert closed after its single performance in January 1961,[231] but the comedy A Shot in the Dark was more successful the same year, starring Julie Harris, Walter Matthau, Gene Saks, and William Shatner.

[232][233][234] A comedy by Murray Schisgal, Luv, opened in 1964 and featured Alan Arkin, Anne Jackson, and Eli Wallach;[235][236] it ran for about 900 performances.

[246][254] The next year, Papp announced that he would produce five plays at the Booth under the auspices of the New York Shakespeare Festival, offering tickets at low prices.

[269][270][271] The Royal Shakespeare Company presented the C. P. Taylor play Good with Alan Howard in 1982,[269][272][273] and Larry Atlas's Total Abandon flopped the next year after its single performance.

[307] The Booth next hosted two solo shows:[308] Love Thy Neighbor by Jackie Mason in 1996,[309][310] as well as Defending the Caveman by Rob Becker (later replaced by Michael Chiklis).

[345][346] Other plays at the Booth included Hughie, An Act of God, and Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 2016; Significant Other and Meteor Shower in 2017; and The Boys in the Band and American Son in 2018.

[32][33] The Booth hosted Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus during early 2019,[347][348] followed later the same year by a limited run of Freestyle Love Supreme.