All of the photos of Roxy Theatre stage shows in our collection are from rehearsals, including this 1931 shot of the Roxyettes, an ensemble that would later travel theatres and evolve into the famed Rockettes of the Radio City Music Hall.

The Roxyettes were just one part of huge staff and crew required to make such a large theatre function smoothly. In Broadway: Its History, People, and Places an Encyclopedia, Second Edition, author Ken Bloom details the physical accommodations for the Roxy’s employees as including two stories of private dressing rooms, three floors of chorus dressing rooms, enormous rehearsal rooms, a costume department, dry-cleaning and laundry rooms, a barber shop and hairdresser, an infirmary, dining room, and a menagerie for show animals.

(credit: American Theatre Architecture Archive, Theatre Historical Society of America)