The theatre, the last to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue, was originally intended to house popular melodramas, but has presented a wide range of productions, including Shakespeare, farce, opera, ballet and revue.

The theatre has presented many musicals that premiered on Broadway, from Funny Face in the 1920s to Pal Joey and Wonderful Town in the 1950s, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Hair in the 1960s, and more recently Hairspray, Memphis, Motown and Mrs Doubtfire.

[1] The site, at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and High Holborn, had previously been what the theatre historians Mander and Mitchenson call "a maze of derelict property".

[2] The exterior is faced in terracotta and brick stone with a three-tier façade of vertically aligned windows, topped by a pillared cupola above the entrance.

Early shows at the New Princes included Carlton Wallace's The Apple of Eden (1912),[4] Arthur Shirley and Ben Landeck's Women and Wine (1912)[5] and Walter Howard's romantic drama The Story of the Rosary, (1913),[6] In 1913 the theatre presented a comedy, Brewster's Millions, and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice with Frank Cellier as Shylock,[7] but reverted to melodrama with On His Majesty's Service (1914), When London Sleeps (1915) and For England, Home, and Beauty (1915), which ran for a hundred performances.

[6] In 1919 C. B. Cochran succeeded Hicks in the management of the theatre, and in April it had a critical and box-office success with André Messager's romantic opera Monsieur Beaucaire, starring Maggie Teyte; it ran for 221 performances.

[11] In April 1921 Sarah Bernhardt appeared in the title role of Daniel in a play by Louis Verneuil,[8] and Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes presented a season including Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, and Les Sylphides, starring Lydia Lopokova.

[13] Sybil Thorndike appeared in Macbeth with Henry Ainley (1926),[8] and Diaghilev's company returned for a season in 1927, with a programme that included the British premiere of Nijinska and Poulenc's Les biches (under the title The House Party).

In 1933 Charles Macdona revived Victorien Sardou's Diplomacy with an all-star cast that included Gerald du Maurier, Lewis Casson, Basil Rathbone, Margaret Bannerman and Joyce Kennedy.

[18] During the 1934 season the Prince's featured a revival of Edward German and Basil Hood's comic opera Merrie England, which ran for 187 performances.

[23] A 1938 success, with 260 performances, was Wild Oats, described as "a song and laugh show" with music by Noel Gay and words by Douglas Furber.

[32] Sadler's Wells Theatre being closed for the duration of the war, its opera and ballet companies toured, and in 1944 based themselves at the Prince's for London seasons.

[35] In 1945 Evelyn Laye starred in Oscar Straus's operetta Three Waltzes,[23] and later in that year Merrie England was revived in a radically revised version by Edward Knoblock, with a cast including Heddle Nash and Dennis Noble.

[23] In 1947 the Prince's came under the direction of Bertram Montague though, according to Mander and Mitchenson, "the new productions were not so successful as the ballet seasons from many parts of the world and the annual pantomimes".

[23] The next play to achieve a long run was His Excellency, a comedy by Dorothy and Campbell Christie, starring Eric Portman and Sebastian Shaw;[37] it opened in May 1950 and ran for 452 performances.

[23] The successes included Maurice Chevalier in a limited season in 1952 (presented by Jack Hylton, who had become the lessee of the Prince's) and Antony and Cleopatra from the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, with Michael Redgrave and Peggy Ashcroft in 1953.

[41] King Kong, a South African musical, ran from February to October 1961, and there were what Mander and Mitchenson describe as "several uneventful productions" until Gentlemen Prefer Blondes opened in August 1962.

[41][43] The old raked stage was replaced with a horizontal one, and lighting equipment described as "the last word in modernity" was installed; the seating capacity of the renovated auditorium was 1,470.

[50] In 1973 the theatre was at risk of demolition, faced by proposals by the Greater London Council for a massive road-building programme and by a plan to build an office block on the site.

[53] Other productions in the 1970s included a musical stage version of the BBC television series Dad's Army, starring Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier and Clive Dunn (October 1975 to February 1976).

[54] In September 1978 the theatre presented a revival of Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston's 1920s dramatisation of Dracula, starring Terence Stamp, with scenic designs by Edward Gorey; it ran for three months.

"[67] A revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel ran from September 1993 to March 1994, with choreography by Kenneth MacMillan; the sets, by Bob Crowley, were, in the view of The Times "the biggest star in Nicholas Hytner's lavish production".

[71] It was predicted that, reflecting the spirit of the 1990s as Hair had that of the 1960s, Rent might emulate the long run of the earlier show, and there was some disappointment that it ran for less than 18 months.

[74] Umoja: The Spirit of Togetherness was well received on opening in November 2001,[75] but noise complaints from the inhabitants of the flats near the theatre resulted in the closure of the show three months later.

[79] They were followed by Daddy Cool (21 September 2006) by Frank Farian, starring Michelle Collins, Javine Hylton and Harvey Junior,[80] and Fame: The Musical (4 May 2007) by Jacques Levy and Steve Margoshes, starring Ian Watkins and Natalie Casey of which The Times commented, "It really is difficult to find a kind word to say about Karen Bruce's production of this shockingly clumsy spin-off".

It was written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman; the original cast starred Michael Ball, Leanne Jones, Mel Smith and Tracie Bennett.