Soho Repertory Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Soho Repertory Theatre, also known as Soho Rep, is an Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 theater company with a 73-seat located at 46 Walker Street in the TriBeCa
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...

 district of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Since 2000, the company has been awarded thirteen Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

s, seven Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...

 nominations, an Oppenheimer Award, the
Kesselring Prize, and The New York Times Outstanding Playwrighting Award

Foundation and history

The Soho Repertory Theatre was founded in July 1975 by Jerry Engelbach, a native New Yorker, and Marlene Swartz, originally from Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

. As co-artistic directors they produced over a hundred plays until Engelbach left in 1989. Swartz then partnered with English director Julian Webber, until she herself left several years later. Swartz is credited as co-director of the long-running Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group is an organization founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. The organization produces theatrical shows and concerts featuring popular music, comedy and multimedia; recorded music and scores for film and television; television appearances for shows such as The Tonight...

 show, which received an early experimental performance at Soho Rep. Early on, Soho Rep’s audience saw performances by many rising young actors, including Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...

, Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, The War of the Roses, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Prizzi's Honor...

, Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Scott Frakes is an American actor, author and director best known for his role as Commander William T. Riker in the Star Trek franchise, as well as for his tenure as host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction ....

, Ed O'Neill
Ed O'Neill
Edward Phillip "Ed" O'Neill, Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the main character, Al Bundy, on the Fox Network sitcom Married... with Children, for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes...

, David Strathairn
David Strathairn
David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...

, and Karen Young
Karen Young (actress)
Karen Young is an American actress.Born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, Young studied at Rutgers University. After graduation she moved to New York City and became an actress, appearing in such films as 9½ Weeks, Jaws: The Revenge, Daylight, Mercy and Hoffa. Her ex-husband is Tom Noonan...

, as well as scores of later successful lighting designer
Lighting designer
The role of the lighting designer within theatre is to work with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create an overall 'look' for the show in response to the text, while keeping in mind issues of visibility, safety and cost...

s, set designers, and costume designer
Costume Designer
A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...

s.

Soho Rep’s founding mission was to present relatively rare classical plays. After several years producing works from Shakespeare to Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

, the theater expanded its mission to include rarely seen modern plays and completely new works. Among Soho Rep’s New York premieres were the stage version of Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...

’s television play Requiem for a Heavyweight
Requiem for a Heavyweight
Requiem for a Heavyweight was a teleplay written by Rod Serling and produced for the live television show Playhouse 90 on 11 October 1956. Six years later, it was adapted as a 1962 feature film starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney....

, J.P. Donleavy’s Fairy Tales of New York, and Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...

’s A Cup of Coffee
A Cup of Coffee (play)
A Cup of Coffee is a play written by Preston Sturges in 1931. It was first performed on March 25, 1988 by the Soho Repertory Theatre at the Greenwich House Theatre in New York City. The play had previously been adapted by Sturges for the film Christmas in July in 1940.-Act I:The story takes place...

, the stage play on which he based his film Christmas is July
Christmas in July (film)
Christmas in July is a 1940 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges based on his 1931 play A Cup of Coffee. It was Sturges' second film as writer-director, after The Great McGinty, and stars Dick Powell and Ellen Drew....

. Among the many new works presented were plays by Americans Len Jenkin and Mac Wellman
Mac Wellman
Mac Wellman is an American playwright, author, and poet. Wellman is best known for his experimental work in the theater which rebels against theatrical conventions, often abandoning such traditional elements as plot and character altogether...

, and Britons Nicholas Wright
Nicholas Wright
Nicholas or Nick Wright may refer to:* Sir Nicholas Wright , English academic* Nick Wright , English footballer* Nick Wright , English footballer...

, David Lan
David Lan
David Lan is an English playwright, filmmaker and theatre director.Born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1952, he emigrated to London in 1972. Since 2000 he has been artistic director of the Young Vic theatre in London's South Bank.-Career:...

, and Barrie Keefe. In 1998 Daniel Aukin became Artistic Director and produced new work by artists including Adam Bock, Young Jean Lee, Richard Maxwell, Melissa James Gibson, Quincy Long, The Flying Machine and Maria Irene Fornes.

In 2006 Sarah Benson
Sarah Benson
Sarah Benson is a British theater director based in New York City. She became Artistic Director of Soho Repertory Theater, Inc in 2006. She is the fourth artistic director at Soho Rep....

 became the fourth Artistic Director of the company. She directed the New York premiere of Sarah Kane
Sarah Kane
Sarah Kane was an English playwright. Her plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture — both physical and psychological — and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of...

's "Blasted
Blasted
Blasted is the first play by British author Sarah Kane. It was first performed in 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London. This performance was highly controversial and the play was fiercely attacked by most newspaper critics, many of whom regarded it as a rather immature attempt to...

" to critical acclaim in fall 2008, and has produced work by other writers and groups including John Jesurun
John Jesurun
John Jesurun is writer, director and multi-media artist, based in a New York, USA. His work Chang in a Void Moon is a live serial running since 1983, originally at the Pyramid Club in the East Village, and now less frequently at venues worldwide. He was born 1951 in Battle Creek, Michigan.-...

, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Dan LeFranc.

In 2005, it was among 406 New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...

. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/nyregion/06donate.html?ex=1278302400&en=93a1beabd4ede5b8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss http://carnegie.org/sub/news/anon2005.html

Actors Kathleen Turner, Ed O'Neill, and Kevin Spacey made their professional debuts at Soho Rep, and the long list of illustrious Soho Rep acting alumni includes Steve Buscemi, Jonathan Frakes, Allison Janney, Steve Mellor, Tim Blake Nelson (now on the board), Will Patton, Bill Sadler, John Seitz, Margaret Whitton and Frank Wood. Many Mainstage productions have emerged from their new play development and commissioning programs, often resulting in artistically lauded productions. .

Mission

Soho Rep is a leading hub for innovative contemporary theater in New York City. It is dedicated to artistic excellence by supporting distinctive, diverse and pioneering theater. It empowers artists to make their boldest work and invites audiences to share in that intimate and transformative live experience. Soho Rep creates a dynamic context for both artists and audiences that promotes and sustains conversation in the field—and the cultural fabric of the city.

Location

Soho Rep’s first home was in the SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...

 section of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, on the ground floor of a loft building at 19 Mercer Street. After the building was sold and the company forced to move, it received a grant from the office of then Manhattan Borough President
Borough president
Borough President is an elective office in each of the five boroughs of New York City.-Reasons for establishment:...

 Andrew Stein
Andrew Stein
Andrew Stein was a Democratic politician who served on the New York City Council and was its last President, and as Manhattan Borough President. Stein's father is Jerry Finkelstein, the retired multi-millionaire publisher of the New York Law Journal, among other publications...

 (later president of the New York City Council
New York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of the City of New York. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The Council serves as a check against the mayor in a "strong" mayor-council government model. The council monitors performance of city agencies and...

) to renovate the auditorium of the partly abandoned old Bellevue Hospital building on East 29th Street.

Soho Rep’s next home was Greenwich House, an historic settlement building on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

. Having to share the theater space at Greenwich House with other performance events eventually proved confining, and after several seasons Soho Rep, under Marlene Swartz and Julian Webber, moved to its present home at 46 Walker Street where it has been since 1991.

Historically, Soho Rep was actually located in SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...

 for only its first few years (Bellevue Hospital is in Kips Bay
Kips Bay
Kips Bay is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Because there are no official boundaries for New York City neighborhoods, the limits of Kip's Bay are somewhat vague, but it is often considered to be the area between East 23rd Street and East 34th Street extending from...

, Greenwich House is in the Village, and Walker Street is below SoHo, in TriBeCa
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...

); accordingly, the new name is more commonly seen as "Soho" (lowercase h). It has also performed at outside venues, among them the Queens Playhouse in the Park and Saint Bartholomew’s Church.

Recent staff

Although Soho Rep is known as a preeminent place where new American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 plays make their debuts, since the departure of Engelbach and Swartz the subsequent artistic directors have all been English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

: Julian Webber, Daniel Aukin, and current Artistic Director Sarah Benson
Sarah Benson
Sarah Benson is a British theater director based in New York City. She became Artistic Director of Soho Repertory Theater, Inc in 2006. She is the fourth artistic director at Soho Rep....

.

External links

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