The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'

now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th
''New York Times''
/ref> is an American

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 th ...

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

company based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

which is notable for producing

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

plays by contemporary writers.
Lefkowitz, David. Simonson, Robert. "Flying Distress Doesn't Hinder Flying Machine's Distress at Soho Rep". ''Playbill''. September 30, 2001 The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the

TriBeCa Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

section of lower

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards,

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

s, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize.The Pulitzer Prizes
The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama
Retrieved February 23, 2021 A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection." Notable artists who have recently created work at the theater, often early in their careers, include: David Adjmi, César Alvarez, Annie Baker,

Alice Birch Alice Birch is a British playwright and screenwriter. Birch has written several plays, including ''Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.'' for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright, and ''Anatomy of a Suicide' ...

, Christopher Chen,

Jackie Sibblies Drury Jackie Sibblies Drury is an American playwright. ''The New York Times'' called Drury's 2012 play ''We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the ...

, debbie tucker green,

Aleshea Harris Aleshea Harris is an American playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Her play ''Is God Is'' won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. Her work has been commissioned for the ...

Lucas Hnath Lucas Hnath ( ) is an American playwright. He won the 2016 Obie Award for excellence in playwriting for his plays ''Red Speedo'' and ''The Christians''. He also won a Whiting Award. Biography Hnath grew up in Orlando, Florida. He moved to New Yo ...

, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Daniel Alexander Jones, Young Jean Lee, Richard Maxwell, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Anne Washburn. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' has described it as a "safer home for dangerous plays". Critics note the “jaw dropping premieres” and “big plays in a small room” as defining features of the theater’s programming. ''

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...

'' theatre critic Hilton Als wrote about current director

Sarah Benson Sarah Benson is a British director of avant-garde theatre productions based in New York. As a Director of the Soho Rep, a lower Manhattan-based theatre company with an "audacious taste in plays", she is notable for her "commitment to adventurous ...

: In 2019 the company adopted a shared leadership model. The three Directors of the theater who now co-lead the company are

, Cynthia Flowers and Meropi Peponides. The company has an annual budget of around $2 million and employs a full-time staff of seven. In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company put eight artists on salary for the 2020-21 season through the creation of a job creation program titled Project Number One referencing Federal Project Number One.Playbill magazine, Dan Meyer, September 24, 2020
Becca Blackwell, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Jillian Walker, More Hired to Create New Works at SoHo Rep
Retrieved February 23, 2021

History

The Soho Repertory Theatre company was founded in 1975 by Jerry Engelbach and Marlene Swartz. From June through September 1975, they remodeled a former textile factory in

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

. They wanted the space to feel "light and informal" so the audience would feel comfortable. They produced their first play,

Maxwell Anderson James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist. Background Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to ...

's ''

Key Largo Key Largo ( es, Cayo Largo) is an island in the upper Florida Keys archipelago and is the largest section of the keys, at long. It is one of the northernmost of the Florida Keys in Monroe County, and the northernmost of the keys connected b ...

'', on September 25. Their initial focus was on rarely seen classical plays, such as works by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his fo ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

, Jean Anouilh, Michel de Ghelderode,

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature, literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama tech ...

and

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic ex ...

.''Soho Rep: Classics'' Backstage (Archive 1960–2000); Sep 5th, 1975; 16, 35; Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive pg. 20 By 1979, the company was sometimes producing two shows per night, allowing audiences to see both plays in succession on a Saturday night.Soho Rep: Converting a ground floor fabric warehouse. Theatre Crafts; Sep 28, 1979; New York Public Library Billy Rose Theatre Division, "Soho Repertory Theatre Ephemera" The founding duo produced more than a hundred plays until Engelbach left in 1989. Since its early days, the company's focus has shifted to contemporary

theatrical works. In 1981, after producing works from

to Shaw, the company produced its first new play: Stephen Davis Parks' ''The Idol Makers''. Among the many new works presented were plays by Americans Len Jenkin and

Mac Wellman Mac Wellman, born John McDowell Wellman on March 7, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio, is an American playwright, author, and poet. The company was run by Artistic Director Daniel Aukin from 1998 to 2006, and he produced new work by artists including Adam Bock, Young Jean Lee, Richard Maxwell, Melissa James Gibson, and María Irene Fornés.

was appointed as Artistic Director in 2007. Around this time, the company transitioned from the smaller

Off-off-Broadway Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the pro ...

model of less than 100 seats to an

contract, typically reserved for theatres with a 100-499

seat capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile th ...

. Benson and Flowers ran the theater together from 2012 until being joined by Producer Meropi Peponides in 2014. In the last decade the company has taken on ambitious projects often winning awards and critical acclaim. One of Benson's first plays was writer

Sarah Kane Sarah Kane (3 February 1971 – 20 February 1999) was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological� ...

’s '' Blasted'' which won the director an Obie Award. Benson's production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's ''An Octoroon'' won an Obie for Best New American Play and transferred to Theatre for a New Audience. Taibi Magar's production of

' 'Is God Is' re-opened Walkerspace in 2018 following renovations and won multiple Obie awards. Benson directed Jackie Sibblies Drury's 'Fairview' which won the 2019

Pulitzer Prize for Drama The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were ...

and had an extended run. The company celebrates with an annual gala usually in the spring, sometimes on a rooftop.

Performance spaces

During the forty-five years of its existence, the theatre has produced in several venues in lower Manhattan, often being forced to move because of issues with rent or city building requirements, and survived from time to time with help from city authorities and supporters. Its first space in 1975 on 19 Mercer Street was in a converted hat warehouse, described by the founders as a "practical adaptation of the Shakespearean playhouse laid out in a modest modern space".Soho Rep on the Move... Again Backstage; Jun 28, 1985; New York Public Library Billy Rose Theatre Division, "Soho Repertory Theatre Ephemera" In 1985, Bob Moss of Playwrights Horizons, assisted by the mayor's office and a grant from the Manhattan Borough President, helped them relocate to a 100-seat neo-classical theater attached to Bellevue Hospital. While the theatre had a separate entrance from the psychiatric hospital, sometimes backstage their actors and writers rode the same elevator with patients, recalled playwright

Mac Wellman Mac Wellman, born John McDowell Wellman on March 7, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio, is an American playwright, author, and poet.Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

. Dubbed ''Walkerspace'', the present theatre is only a few blocks from the company's original venue. The company has been at this location except for a short period for building renovations, which had been paid for with a fundraising campaign as well as help from the city's building commissioner, Rick Chandler and Julie Menin.Paulson, Michael (April 24, 2017
"With Help From City, Soho Rep Will Return to Theater It Vacated"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Staff

* Marlene Swartz (1975–1995) - Co-Artistic Director * Jerry Engelbach (1975–1989) - Co-Artistic Director * Julian Webber (1990–1998) - Co-Artistic Director * Daniel Aukin (1998–2006) - Artistic Director *

(2007–Present) Artistic Director *Cynthia Flowers, Executive Director (2012–present) *Meropi Peponides, Producer (2014–present) Since 2019, Sarah Benson, Cynthia Flowers and Meropi Peponides have served as the Directors of the theater in a shared leadership model.

Dramatic productions

External links

SohoRep.org Official website

SoHo Repertory Theater
at

Internet Off-Broadway Database The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway. The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundation ...

SoHo Repertory
on NYC-Arts.org

References

{{Authority control Off-Broadway theaters Theatre companies in New York City Performance art in New York City Tribeca