The SoHo Playhouse is an

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

theatre at 15 Vandam Street in the

Hudson Square Hudson Square is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by Clarkson Street to the north, Canal Street (Manhattan), Canal Street to the south, Varick Street (Manhattan), Varick Street to the east, and ...

area of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. The theatre opened in 1962 as the Village South Theatre with the original production of Jean Erdman's musical play ''The Coach with the Six Insides'' which was based upon

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

's last novel ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It was published in instalments starting in 1924, under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The final title was only revealed when the book was publishe ...

''. The following year

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), ''The Sandbox (play), The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), ''A Delicat ...

used profits from ''

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of middle-aged couple Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they rece ...

'' to establish the Playwrights' Unit at the Village South Theatre; an organization which provided a platform for untested new playwrights to premiere their works. The theatre closed in 1970, with its last production being Michael Preston Barr and Dion McGregor's musical ''Who's Happy Now?''. It did still house plays for various off-Broadway productions under the simple name of 15 Van Dam. The theatre was home to the New York Academy of Theatrical Arts from 1970 until 1974. It reopened in as the SoHo Playhouse in 1994 with a production of the play ''Grandma Sylvia's Funeral.'' "Lighthouse: An Immersive Drinking Musical" debuted at the SoHo Playhouse in the summer of 2023 and set a record as the longest running production at the venue. The Irish-American musical comedy, created by Jacki Thrapp with additional material by Billy Recce, poured free shots to audience members during the show and even caught the eye of Drama Desk Judges. “What makes the show extraordinary? A woman named Sid Parker, who plays Kat Culley. he hasmy favorite type of acting, it does not seem like acting at all," said former President of the Drama Desk Peter Filichia. The drinking show, which sold out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was never picked up for a Broadway run. Thrapp released a compilation album in 2025 featuring the cast of the Edinburgh and Off-Broadway shows. "The reason why it's not one big studio soundtrack is very simple: I don't have $20,000," Thrapp shared in the intro of the album. "Especially for albums like this that probably only gross around $10 a year." Thrapp, an Emmy winner, has been very outspoken about the business of Broadway in her "Making A Musical" podcast. In recent years, Soho Playhouse serves to incubate and produce intimate new works. In 2023, this included the psychological thriller, ''

Job Work, labor (labour in Commonwealth English), occupation or job is the intentional activity people perform to support the needs and desires of themselves, other people, or organizations. In the context of economics, work can be seen as the huma ...

'', featuring Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon; Ed Byrne's comedic solo show titled ''Tragedy Plus Time'', Martin Dockery's absurdist thriller ''Inescapable'' and Florencia Iriondo's one-woman folk-pop musical, ''South''.

References

Off-Broadway theaters 1962 establishments in New York City Theatres completed in 1962 1970 disestablishments in New York (state) 1994 establishments in New York City Hudson Square {{US-theat-struct-stub