A celebrity-packed crowd - including Henry Kissinger and Barbara Walters - filled the Majestic Theatre, home of "The Phantom of the Opera," one of Schoenfeld's biggest hits. Among the speakers Monday honouring Schoenfeld, who died last November, were Hugh Jackman, Jeremy Irons, Whoopi Goldberg and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Schoenfeld was chairman of the powerful Shubert Organization.

Between speeches, songs were heard from some of the Shubert Organization's biggest hits including "Cats" and "A Chorus Line," as well as from such shows as "Amour," "Chess" and "Passing Strange" - shows Schoenfeld loved and produced but were not commercial successes.