Manhattan Theatre Club
Encyclopedia
Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow
and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed theatre organizations.
MTC’s many awards include fifteen Tony Awards,six Pulitzer Prizes, 47 Obie Awards and 29 Drama Desk Awards, as well as numerous Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards. MTC has won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement, a Drama Desk for Outstanding Excellence, and a Theatre World for Outstanding Achievement.
MTC produces plays and musicals on and off-Broadway while maintaining a commitment to living playwrights and taking a comprehensive approach to artistic development and arts education. Its mission and values give MTC a unique place in American theatre.
The Manhattan Theatre Club purchased the Biltmore Theatre in 2001 as a Broadway home for its productions. After renovations, it re-opened in October 2003. With 650 seats the Friedman has about two-thirds of the capacity of the old Biltmore Theatre, although it now boasts modern conveniences such as elevators and meeting rooms. The theatre was renamed the "Samuel J. Friedman Theatre" on September 4, 2008 in honor of Broadway publicist Samuel Friedman.
New York City Center
, Stage I & Stage 2
In 1984, the Manhattan Theatre Club moved to New York City Center
's lower level. The Manhattan Theater Club performance space comprises a 299-seat theaterand a 150-seat theater.
Lynne Meadow
Lynne Meadow is an American theatre producer and director and a college professor.A cum laude graduate of Bryn Mawr, Meadow attended the Yale School of Drama...
and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed theatre organizations.
MTC’s many awards include fifteen Tony Awards,six Pulitzer Prizes, 47 Obie Awards and 29 Drama Desk Awards, as well as numerous Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards. MTC has won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement, a Drama Desk for Outstanding Excellence, and a Theatre World for Outstanding Achievement.
MTC produces plays and musicals on and off-Broadway while maintaining a commitment to living playwrights and taking a comprehensive approach to artistic development and arts education. Its mission and values give MTC a unique place in American theatre.
Mission
According to the MTC, its mission is:- "to produce a season of innovative work with a series of productions as broad and diverse as New York itself;
- to encourage significant new work by creating an environment in which writers and theatre artists are supported by the finest professionals producing theatre today;
- to nurture new talent in playwriting, musical composition, directing, acting and design;
- to reach out to young audiences with innovative programs in education and maintain a commitment to cultivating the next generation of theatre professionals."
Notable productions
- Eastern StandardEastern StandardEastern Standard is a play by Richard Greenberg. Set in 1987, it focuses on yuppies, AIDS, the stock market and insider trading scandals, homelessness, and urban malaise.-Plot:...
by Richard GreenbergRichard GreenbergRichard Greenberg is an American playwright. He is the author of over 25 plays including eight South Coast Repertory world premieres: Our Mother's Brief Affair, The Injured Party, The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, Hurrah at Last, Three Days of Rain Richard Greenberg (1958–present) is an American... - RuinedRuined (play)Ruined is a play by Lynn Nottage. The play won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.The play involves the plight of women in the civil war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.-Production history:...
by Lynn NottageLynn NottageLynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often deals with the lives of women of African descent, African Americans and women. She was born in Brooklyn and is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and a MacArthur Genius... - MauritiusMauritius (play)Mauritius is a play on Broadway which opened on October 4, 2007 at the Biltmore Theatre and closed November 25, 2007. Written by Pulitzer Prize for Drama-nominee Theresa Rebeck, it is her Broadway debut. It is about two sisters who inherit a stamp collection which might be worth a fortune. Many of...
by Theresa RebeckTheresa RebeckTheresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award.-Biography:... - LoveMusikLoveMusikLoveMusik is a musical written by Alfred Uhry, using a selection of music by Kurt Weill. The story explores the romance and lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, based on Speak Low : The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by Lys Symonette & Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince...
, book by Alfred UhryAlfred UhryAlfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright, screenwriter, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing....
and songs by Kurt WeillKurt WeillKurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht... - Blackbird Blackbird (play)Blackbird is a one-act, ninety-minute play written in 2005 by Scottish playwright David Harrower. It was inspired in part by the crimes of sex offender Toby Studebaker and depicts a young woman meeting a middle-aged man fifteen years after having a sexual relationship, when she was twelve.-...
by David HarrowerDavid HarrowerDavid Harrower is a Scottish playwright who lives in Glasgow.His agents are Casarotto Ramsay.-Career:... - TranslationsTranslationsTranslations is a three-act play by Irish playwright Brian Friel written in 1980. It is set in Baile Beag , a small village at the heart of 19th century agricultural Ireland...
by Brian FrielBrian FrielBrian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"... - Rabbit HoleRabbit HoleRabbit Hole is a play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. It was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play was originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory and first presented at its Pacific Playwrights Festival reading series in 2005...
by David Lindsay-AbaireDavid Lindsay-AbaireDavid Lindsay-Abaire is an American playwright and lyricist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play Rabbit Hole, which also earned several Tony Award nominations.-Early life and education:... - DoubtDoubt (play)Doubt: A Parable is a 2004 play by John Patrick Shanley. Originally staged off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club on November 23, 2004, the production transferred to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in March 2005 and closed on July 2, 2006 after 525 performances and 25 previews...
by John Patrick ShanleyJohn Patrick ShanleyJohn Patrick Shanley is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. He also contributed articles on the performing arts to The New York Times among other publications.-Life and career:... - ProofProof (play)Proof is a play by David Auburn originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club on 23 May 2000. It then went to Broadway on 24 October 2000 at the Walter Kerr Theatre, and was directed by Daniel J. Sullivan, with Mary-Louise Parker as Catherine, Larry Bryggman as Robert, Ben Shenkman as Hal, and...
by David AuburnDavid AuburnDavid Auburn is an American playwright.He was raised in Ohio and Arkansas. He attended the University of Chicago, where he was a member of Off-Off Campus, and received a degree in English literature.... - The Tale of the Allergist's WifeThe Tale of the Allergist's WifeThe Tale of the Allergist's Wife is a play by Charles Busch.In his first play written for a mainstream audience, Busch explores the Upper West Side milieu of aspiring intellectual and middle-aged upper class matron Marjorie Taub, who lives comfortably with her doctor husband Ira in an expensively...
by Charles BuschCharles BuschCharles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which was a success on Broadway.-Early life:Busch was born in 1954 and... - Crimes of the HeartCrimes of the HeartCrimes of the Heart is a play by Beth Henley.-Synopsis:At the core of the tragic comedy are the three Magrath sisters, Meg, Babe, and Lenny, who reunite at Old Granddaddy's home in Hazlehurst, Mississippi after Babe shoots her abusive husband. The trio was raised in a dysfunctional family with a...
by Beth HenleyBeth HenleyElizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley is an American dramatist and actress. She writes primarily about women's issues and family in the Southern United States. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays... - Sight UnseenSight Unseen (play)Sight Unseen is a play by Donald Margulies. At its center is Jonathan Waxman, a Brooklyn Jew who has become a very wealthy critically acclaimed artist. Happily married, with a baby on the way, he travels to London for a retrospective of his work...
by Donald MarguliesDonald MarguliesDonald Margulies is an American playwright and a professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale University... - Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion! is a play by Terrence McNally. Its off-Broadway premiere took place at the Manhattan Theatre Club on October 11, 1994, in a staging by Joe Mantello that ran for 72 performances...
by Terrence McNallyTerrence McNallyTerrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the... - Ain't Misbehavin', the Fats WallerFats WallerFats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
musical - King Hedley IIKing Hedley IIKing Hedley II is a play by American playwright August Wilson, the ninth in his ten-part series, The Pittsburgh Cycle. This is the ninth of the plays in Wilson's ten-play cycle, each from a different era...
by August WilsonAugust WilsonAugust Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...
Facilities
The Samuel J. Friedman TheatreThe Manhattan Theatre Club purchased the Biltmore Theatre in 2001 as a Broadway home for its productions. After renovations, it re-opened in October 2003. With 650 seats the Friedman has about two-thirds of the capacity of the old Biltmore Theatre, although it now boasts modern conveniences such as elevators and meeting rooms. The theatre was renamed the "Samuel J. Friedman Theatre" on September 4, 2008 in honor of Broadway publicist Samuel Friedman.
New York City Center
New York City Center
New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...
, Stage I & Stage 2
In 1984, the Manhattan Theatre Club moved to New York City Center
New York City Center
New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...
's lower level. The Manhattan Theater Club performance space comprises a 299-seat theaterand a 150-seat theater.