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Theatre Genesis was an
off-off-Broadway Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway theatre, 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 commerc ...
theater founded in 1964 by Ralph Cook. Located in the historic St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan, it produced the work of new American
playwrights A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwrigh ...
, including Lanford Wilson, Tony Barsha, Murray Mednick, Leonard Melfi, Walter Hadler, and
Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...
. Theatre Genesis is often credited as one of the original off-off-Broadway theaters, along with
Joe Cino Joseph Cino (November 16, 1931 – April 2, 1967), was an Italian-American theatre producer. The Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino's Caffe Cino in the West Village, West Village of Manhattan. Caffe Cin ...
's Caffe Cino, Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Judson Poets Theatre. The theatre was known for its anarchistic,
heterosexual Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions ...
,
machismo Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1940s and 1950s and its use more wi ...
energy, and often produced political plays. Like the other off-off-Broadway theatres, Theatre Genesis used a
non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that is not carried out in the interest of Profit (economics), profit. The opposite is Commerce, commercial, something that primarily serves profit interests and is focused on bu ...
model of production.


Founding the theatre


Michael Allen at St. Mark's

A young, progressive
Episcopalian Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protes ...
rector named Michael Allen came to St. Mark's in 1963 and opened the
parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
to everyone from the neighborhood. He did
outreach Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...
to the many
demographics Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examin ...
and ethnicities in the East Village, which included artists, counterculturists,
immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...
, and homeless people, among others. Allen aimed to fund arts and education initiatives in order to reflect the character of the neighborhood. Unlike Judson Church, in the
West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The West Village is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to ...
, the cultural programming at St. Mark's received minimal resistance from the church's older, wealthier, more conservative members. Plays, poetry readings,
underground films An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing. Notable examples include John Waters' ''Pink Flamingos'', David Lynch's ''Eraserhead'', Andy Warhol's ''Blue Movie'', Rosa von Praunheim's ''Tal ...
, and political gatherings began happening regularly at the church. Allen then decided an additional staff member was necessary to coordinate this programming, and hired Ralph Cook.


Ralph Cook as curator

After temporarily employing the curator Tom Pike, Allen met Ralph Cook, an
actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...
, who came to one of Allen's Sunday services. Cook began coming to the church regularly, and Allen and Cook became friends. Allen hired Cook for the role of curator, as Cook was well-connected in the downtown arts scene and had many friends who were looking for a space to showcase their creative work. His friends included Sam Shepard, Murray Mednick, Leonard Melfi, and Tom Sankey, among others. Their writing reflected the political and social upheaval that they were witnessing, and was often full of
angst Angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. ''Anguish'' is its Romance languages, Latinate cognate, equivalent, and the words ''anxious'' and ''anxiety'' are of similar origin. Etymology The word ''angst'' was introduced in ...
and
testosterone Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone and androgen in Male, males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of Male reproductive system, male reproductive tissues such as testicles and prostate, as well as promoting se ...
. Their work didn't fit comfortably into the perceived camp aesthetic and looser structure at Caffe Cino and La MaMa. The church housed a 70-seat
black box theater A black box theater is a performance space, typically a square or rectangular room, with black walls and a black, flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interact ...
with sixteen lights, nine dimmers, spare sets, and minimal props. Much of the work being produced at the theatre had nihilistic themes. Cook said of Theatre Genesis: :Here, now, in lower Manhattan, the phenomenon is taking place: the beginning, the Genesis, of a cultural revolution. It is taking place out of utter necessity. Out of the necessity to survive....Personally I have little hope for the survival of our civilization. But whatever hope we have lies with our artists. For they alone have the ability (if we do not continue to corrupt them) to withstand the onslaught of the mass media and the multitude of false gods. They alone have the ability to show us ourselves.


Early history of the theatre


Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...

As the theatre's newly-hired " lay minister of the arts", Cook began his routine of reading scripts. He quickly created a diligent and thorough selection process with a two-pronged production track: there was a season of six or fewer new plays, and a Monday night workshop series where playwrights could have their work read. Cook believed in giving new playwrights exposure and continuity, in order to develop the artist in addition to the individual play. Cook never commissioned work or guaranteed that a work would be produced in the future. While this often led Genesis playwrights to produce their work elsewhere, it also developed their trust in Cook to be honest and objective. After an early off-key production of Michael Boyd's ''Study in Color'', Cook produced a double-bill of one-acts by Sam Shepard. ''Cowboys'' and ''The Rock Garden'' were both homages to
Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
, and reflected Shepard's wanderings with then-comrade Charles Mingus III (son of
Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz Double bass, upright bassist, composer, bandleader, pianist, and author. A major proponent of collective Musical improvisation, improvisation, he is considered one of ...
). The one-acts harnessed his youthful energy, using playful language, but also represented a raw, innovative voice from the streets. Shepard describes those first productions:
We were in rehearsal for wo playswithin that week... We had no money. I can remember getting props off the street. We'd take Yuban coffee cans, punch a hole in them, and use them for lights. We did it all from scratch, which was pretty incredible.
''Cowboys'' and ''The Rock Garden'' were largely dismissed by critics, who could not see past the similarities to Beckett. However, Michael Smith of ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
'' wrote in 1964: :I know it sounds pretentious and unprepossessing: 'Theatre Genesis... dedicated to the new playwright'... But they have actually found a new playwright, ndhe has written a pair of provocative and genuinely original plays... Shepard is feeling his way, working with an intuitive approach to language and dramatic structure and moving into an area between ritual and naturalism, where character transcends psychology, fantasy breaks down literalism, and the patterns of ordinariness have their own lives. His is a gestalt theater which evokes the existence behind behavior. Smith's review bolstered attendance, allowing the public to notice Shepard and introducing other new playwrights to the theatre.


Off-off-Broadway, off-Broadway, and Broadway

Although Shepard's work was produced in other off-off-Broadway theaters, he considered Theatre Genesis his true beginning. In 1965, his one-act ''Chicago'' was produced alongside Lawrence Ferlinghetti's ''The Customs Inspector in Baggy Pants''. The production was transferred to another theatre due to its success, which caused problems for shows like ''Chicago'' for multiple reasons. First, Theatre Genesis plays were often written in response to the increasingly
consumerist ''Consumerist'' (also known as ''The Consumerist'') was a non-profit consumer affairs website owned by Consumer Media LLC, a subsidiary of ''Consumer Reports'', with content created by a team of full-time reporters and editors. The site's focu ...
model of
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. They were written specifically for the gritty, intimate environment of Theatre Genesis. Uptown, the plays lost their context and were less successful.
Sally Banes Sally Rachel Banes (October 9, 1950 – June 14, 2020) was a notable dance historian, writer, and critic. Life, education, and performance career Born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., Banes studied dance, an ...
has argued that, "For off-off-Broadway, graduating to off-Broadway - leaving the alternative home and the alternative community - was a fate to be avoided, for it altered the relations of production, turning the artists into alienated labor." Ralph Cook is quoted as saying, "We couldn't care less about Broadway. We are aware that it exists somewhere uptown, no more." There were also more practical concerns about transferring shows uptown. Due to union restrictions in off-Broadway theatres, a transfer meant that most of the non-union cast had to be replaced. Shepard and his actors were frustrated when ''Chicago'' was transferred, as many of his actors had helped to create their roles. Off-off-Broadway's tensions with
Actors' Equity Association The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly called Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American trade union, labor union representing those who work in Theatre, live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions w ...
continued until the showcase code was created. This code allows union actors to perform in experimental, not-for-profit productions in exchange for being compensated for travel expenses to rehearsals. Jack Kroll said of the theatre: :Theatre Genesis is a mix of counterculture ingredients; a coolness that can explode like liquid oxygen, a dropout hipsterism, a polymorphous perversity of language and feeling, a Zap Comix mocking of straight heads.


Melfi, Koutoukas, and Mednick

Between 1964 and 1966, Cook produced debut productions of many playwrights, including one-acts from a then-unknown Charles L. Mee. Another early production was a version of ''
Medea In Greek mythology, Medea (; ; ) is the daughter of Aeëtes, King Aeëtes of Colchis. Medea is known in most stories as a sorceress, an accomplished "wiktionary:φαρμακεία, pharmakeía" (medicinal magic), and is often depicted as a high- ...
'' by H.M. Koutoukas. The production was set in a laundromat, where Medea kills her offspring in the
washing machine A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a machine designed to laundry, launder clothing. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water. Other ways of doing laundry include dry cleaning (which uses ...
. Koutoukas was simultaneously having his work produced at Theatre Genesis and Caffe Cino, not having told either theatre about the other theatre's production. The Caffe Cino production had Medea played by a man (Charles Stanley) in drag. When Koutoukas submitted the script to Genesis, the role was played by a woman (Linda Eskenas), which he intended as a prank. Although the production was successful, Cook was angry at Koutoukas. Theatre Genesis' production of Koutoukas' ''Medea'' opened on October 31, 1965, the final weekend of the Caffe Cino run. Many favored the campy Cino production. Paul Foster describes the play's climax:
Medea was there for you to reach out and touch, forming the unspeakable crime of infanticide in her mind. Then she threw her baby into a laundromat and washed it to death with Oxydol. She slammed the lid down and set the dial on HEAVY LOAD. How can you forget things like that?Bottoms, Stephen J. ''Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement''. 2004. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is a university press that is a part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earn ...
, 2007.
A third production, with the Caffe Cino cast, ran at La MaMa on October 13, 1965. The three productions of Koutoukas' ''Medea'', at Caffe Cino, La MaMa, and Theatre Genesis, furthered the divide between the campiness of the first two theaters and the more masculine persona of Theatre Genesis. Leonard Melfi would become Theatre Genesis' most-produced playwright. In 1965, Melfi had five of his one-acts produced by Cook. He received the most success for his short play ''Birdbath''. The play was written specifically for Cook, who would later direct the production, and was originally titled ''Coffeecake and Caviar''. ''Birdbath'''s plot centers around Frankie, who has a
one-night stand A one-night stand is a single sexual encounter in which there is no expectation that there shall be any further relations between the sexual participants. It draws its name from the common practice of a one-night stand, a single night performanc ...
with a waitress named Velma. They drink and talk into the night, going further into their hidden pasts, until Velma reveals that she murdered her mother earlier that morning. ''Birdbath'' remained a staple of off-off-Broadway, receiving a production at La MaMa and later being published by Ellen Stewart in ''Six From La Mama''. Perhaps the most experimental and enigmatic of the Theatre Genesis playwrights was Murray Mednick. Mednick, who later co-ran Theatre Genesis after Cook's departure, often workshopped his scripts repeatedly with Genesis actors before finalizing the text. His plays ''The Hunter'', ''Willie the Germ'', and ''The Hawk'' were ritualistic interpretations of life on the streets. For ''The Hawk'', Mednick developed the script through
improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...
with a group of actors over two months. An exploration of
drug addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use can ...
, ''The Hawk'' employed the ritual elements and poetic language emblematic of Theatre Genesis. The free-form style of the play began to appear with greater frequency at theaters like The Living Theater and Joseph Chaikin's The Open Theater, and was a departure from the scripted plays previously produced at Theatre Genesis. Smith, of ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
'', wrote:
''The Hawk'' is convincingly detailed, yet mysterious... sharply contemporary, the form strange but not obstructive; it is performed with exceptional immediacy and authority; its ultimate intent remains veiled or vague, but the other levels are so rich it doesn't matter.... in moving beyond the documentary realism of the world of heroin addiction, ''The Hawk'' and Theatre Genesis had gone a step beyond gritty poetic realism, and for that reason, it was perhaps the most daring venture yet attempted by Genesis and perhaps its single most important achievement.Crespy, David A. ''Off-Off-Broadway Explosion: How Provocative Playwrights of the 1960s Ignited a New American Theater''. New York: Back Stage Books, 2003.
Mednick describes his use of poetic language in the play: :There was a kind of presentational quality to the language which I think we were very influenced by. We had a similar attitude toward language, which has to do with a feeling about the spoken word as an almost shamanistic act, incantatory, ritualistic, as opposed to the theatrical dialogue tradition... We had a very high estimation of the idea of the word itself coming through the medium of the actor.


Masculinity and heterosexism of Theatre Genesis

Most of the work produced at Theatre Genesis incorporated testosterone and drugs, and the close-knit community of artists created a perceived machismo persona for the theater. Tony Barsha, a playwright who has said that the heterosexual environment of Theatre Genesis made it the only off-off-Broadway theatre where he felt comfortable, is quoted saying that the theatre consisted of "a bunch of guys, and their babes, and their drugs". However, many women did work at the Genesis in later years, including María Irene Fornés. She said of the theatre: : heatre Genesiswas not macho in the usual way, but something very kind of defeated... Not 'macho macho', but 'macho drug', which is different. These were straight men but from the street drug world. Macho drug has this kind of undercurrent of anger, disappointment, possible violence. By 1967, the divide between the homosexual environment of Caffe Cino and the heterosexual Theatre Genesis began to dissolve. More work was focused on social and political issues, particularly America's involvement in
Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
and civil and
gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Not ...
. One Genesis production involving social and political commentary was Grant Duay's ''Fruit Salad'' (1967). The play juxtaposed film footage of a woman making fruit salad with scenes of soldiers engaged in war. Each soldier had a name like Banana, Melon, or Cherry, and the seriousness of their situation was intended to be juxtaposed against the trivial nature of the fruit salad. The character Cherry is clearly intended to be a homosexual. Throughout the play, Banana makes
homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...
comments to Cherry, then eventually reveals to his own homosexuality in a sexual interaction between the two men. Although the play includes homosexual themes, a departure for Theatre Genesis, many critics have noted that the overall aesthetic of the piece was consistent with the earlier work produced at the theater. Barsha directed the production, and Smith of ''The Village Voice'' wrote that it was "vivid, simple and arresting... A bitter, painful, almost despairing vision presented with lightness, fluidity, conciseness and cunning".


Later history of the theatre

Theatre Genesis eventually moved closer to the mainstream. Many off-off-Broadway theaters began being scrutinized by those looking to make a profit and by external funding organizations. In 1966, St. Mark's accepted a $185,000
federal grant In the United States, federal grants are economic aid issued by the United States government out of the general federal revenue. A federal grant is an award of financial assistance from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purp ...
brokered by
The New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...
to support the church's art and educational outreach programs, giving each production a budget of $200. Artists were then paid for the work, which was new for off-off-Broadway. The grant eventually led to a troubled relation between Theatre Genesis and external funding. Later in 1966, Cook and Allen refused a large
Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...
, and later stopped accepting the New School funding deal due to "excessive entanglement with the government". Cook then had to solicit funding from the Ford Foundation, and the theatre eventually became reliant on this external funding. When that funding was reduced in 1969, the theatre had to cut the season from six shows to three. Cook left the theater in 1969, leaving it to be co-run by Murray Mednick and Walter Hadler. They operated it as a cooperative for a few more years. David Crespy wrote, "The astVillage was morphing around them as well... Jazz was being replaced by psychedelic rock, and the long-haired counterculture of 1969 was bringing a less angst-driven energy". Downtown
activism Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make Social change, changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from ...
was still prevalent, but Joe Cino's death on April 2, 1967 marked a departure from the origins of off-off-Broadway.


References


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Theatre Genesis on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections
Former theatres in Manhattan 1964 establishments in New York City Off-off-Broadway