the Minskoff and American Place theaters, were constructed under the Special Theater District amendment of 1967 as a way to give their respective developers additional floor area. The space is accessed via escalators from street level, as well as via stairs. The theater was built with a capacity of 650 seats; , the theater has 751 seats. The space was originally meant as an off-Broadway house with fewer than 500 seats, but the Circle's artistic director Theodore Mann and its managing director Paul Libin increased the capacity by relocating columns and replaced steps with ramps. Originally, the theater was decorated with red seats, and it had a red-and-gray carpet in a checkerboard pattern. The Circle's symbol, a cube, was incorporated into the design of the carpet and the light. The top of the auditorium contains soundproof panels, which minimized noise from police horses when the theater opened. A soundproof control booth was placed at the rear of the auditorium. The Circle contains a thrust stage, with seats surrounding it on three sides, similar to the venue's off-Broadway predecessors. It is one of two Broadway houses with a thrust stage; the other is Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. Because of the stage's unconventional design, theatrical critics negatively reviewed it, while directors had difficulty staging productions there. Conversely, the design allowed the audience to be extremely close to the stage, as there were only ten rows of seats. According to Mann, the design of the current Circle in the Square was based on the predecessor theaters. These, in turn, were based on a recommendation from theater critic Brooks Atkinson, who had told Mann: "When you walk in the door, you should see the stage—that should predominate—not the audience." Off-Broadway predecessors The Circle in the Square was founded by Theodore Mann, José Quintero, Jason Wingreen, Aileen Cramer, Emily Stevens, and Edward Mann, all of whom were members of the Loft Players. The theater's founders were in their mid-20s and were described by The New York Times as having "little training, less experience, and no reputation in the theater". Sources disagree on when the organization was founded, but it may have been established in 1949 or 1950. The founding team wished to establish a "center dedicated to the development and presentation of all the arts". The team could not afford to open their theater in Manhattan's high-rent Theater District. Upon the recommendation of Mann's