The Princess Theatre was a joint venture between the Shubert Brothers, producer Ray Comstock, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury and actor-director Holbrook Blinn.

Built on a narrow slice of land located at 104–106 West 39th Street, just off Sixth Avenue in New York City, and seating just 299 people, it was one of the smallest Broadway theatres when it opened in early 1913.

[2][3] Though fairly drab on the outside, looking like a six-story office building, except for its marquees and gaudy electric sign over the main entrance, the Princess was elegant inside.

A blend of Georgian and French Renaissance styles, the auditorium contained fourteen rows of seats and twelve boxes off the proscenium arch and was hailed for its excellent acoustics and sight-lines.

Originally planned as a venue for short dramatic plays, the early shows at the Princess failed to attract an audience.

Theatre agent Elisabeth Marbury was tasked with booking the theatre to improve its fortunes and approached young Jerome Kern, who suggested a collaboration with Guy Bolton, to write a series of musicals specifically tailored to its smaller setting, with an intimate style and modest budgets.

[3] She and Comstock asked for meaningful, modern, sophisticated pieces that would provide an alternative to the star-studded revues and extravaganzas of Ziegfeld and others or the thinly-plotted, slapdash, gaudy Edwardian musical comedies and operetta imports from Europe.

[4][5] Kern and Bolton's first "Princess Theatre musical" was Nobody Home (1915), an adaptation of a 1905 London show by Paul Rubens called Mr. Popple (of Ippleton).

The show was notable for Bolton's realistic take on courtship complications and Kern's song "The Magic Melody", the first Broadway showtune with a basic jazz progression.

Their second show, with Philip Bartholomae and lyrics by Schuyler Green, was an original musical called Very Good Eddie (1915).

[7] British humorist and lyricist/playwright P. G. Wodehouse had supplied some lyrics for Very Good Eddie but now joined the team and collaborated with Kern and Bolton at the theatre for Oh, Boy!

Charm was uppermost in the creators' minds ... the audience could relax, have a few laughs, feel slightly superior to the silly undertakings on stage, and smile along with the simple, melodic, lyrically witty but undemanding songs".

It was composed by Louis Hirsch, and ran for 189 performances: "Despite a respectable run, everyone realized there was little point in continuing the series without Kern.

The theatre's most popular plays in this decade were Diff'rent by Eugene O'Neill (1921) and a production of Six Characters in Search of an Author (1922).

[4] On October 5, 1947, Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow met in a rehearsal space at the Labor Stage to form what would become the Actors Studio.