New Brooklyn Theatre is a theatre company based in Brooklyn, NY that specializes in producing socially relevant work in New York City and internationally. It was founded in 2012 by Artistic Director Jonathan Solari, Jeff Strabone, and Sarah Wolff.Flock, Elizabeth
"A Close Call, and Then a Curtain Call"
'' BKLYNR'', New York, 1 May 2014. The New York Times has called it "a flash point for the fusion of theatre and politics."Morgan, Richard
"New Brooklyn Theater Casts Audience in Crucial Role"
'' The New York Times'', New York, 4 July 2014. It is now under the artistic leadership of Raja Feather Kelly.

The Slave Theater

New Brooklyn Theatre was founded to restore the historic Slave Theater at 1215 Fulton Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. In August 2012, the group launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $200,000 for a down payment on the building. Despite being one of the first crowdfunding campaigns to attempt to raise money to purchase a building, the group failed to reach its goal. The campaign drew praise and criticism from residents of the neighborhood. As of February 2015, the group claims to still be in negotiations for the building with Fulton Halsey Development Corporation, a real estate development company that purchased the building in February 2013.

Edward Albee's The Death of Bessie Smith

On January 9, 2014, the group produced its first full production,

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'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), '' A Delicate Balance'' (1966) ...

's The Death of Bessie Smith in Interfaith Medical Center, a Bed-Stuy hospital that was scheduled to close on the play's final performance. The playwright granted permission for the rarely produced play to be performed because of its social relevance. The production, which was directed by the company's Artistic Director Jonathan Solari, incorporated post-show conversations with City Council members, Public Advocate

Letitia James Letitia Ann James (born October 18, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party and the current Attorney General of New York, having won the 2018 election to succeed appointed Attorney General Barbara Und ...

, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, New York state senators, state assembly members, and activist artists like Harry Belafonte. After two extended runs, elected officials and hospital staff have credited the production with keeping the hospital open.

Other works

In June 2014, in response to the

2014 Elk River chemical spill The Elk River chemical spill occurred on January 9, 2014 when crude 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM) was released from a Freedom Industries facility into the Elk River, a tributary of the Kanawha River, in Charleston in the U.S. state of West ...

, the group performed a new adaptation of

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

An Enemy of the People ''An Enemy of the People'' (original Norwegian title: ''En folkefiende''), an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, followed his previous play, ''Ghosts'', which criticized the hypocrisy of his society's moral code. That response inclu ...

on a custom built floating stage on the Elk River. The group was invited by Harvard University to build a new Turkish production of

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

's The Cherry Orchard in the

Yedikule Yedikule ( en, Seven Towers) is a neighborhood of Fatih, Istanbul in Turkey. It is named after the seven-towered Yedikule Fortress, which surrounds the neighborhood. Urbanized in the 16th century, the neighborhood became a hub for industrial and a ...

region of Istanbul.* This play aimed to draw attention to the destruction of historic gardens in the area. Read Revive Reclaim, a reading series in Bed-Stuy, presented four forgotten plays by African-American playwrights and asked audiences to choose which play would the company would produce a full production of. *The New Century, "Man in love" Christina Anderson.

References

{{Coord, 40, 40, 51, N, 73, 57, 10, W Theatres in Brooklyn