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 tha ...

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 List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

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. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

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

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

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 Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

.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 David Adjmi (born 1973) is an American playwright. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the inaugural Steinberg Playwright Award, a Bush Artists Fellowship, and the Kesselring Prize for Drama. Life Adjmi grew up in a ...

César Alvarez César Alvarez (born 1980) is an American composer, lyricist and playwright. César is best known for the musical ''FUTURITY'' which they wrote with their band The Lisps. ''FUTURITY'' won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical in 2016. A ...

Annie Baker Annie Baker (born April 1981) is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play ''The Flick.'' Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: ''Circle Mirror Tr ...

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,

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 Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an American playwright. He won the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for his plays '' Appropriate'' and '' An Octoroon''. His plays '' Gloria'' and '' Everybody'' were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer ...

Daniel Alexander Jones Daniel Alexander Jones (born 1970) is an American performance artist, playwright, director, essayist and educator. Birth Jones was born on February 9, 1970, to Georgina Leslie Jones and Arthur Leroy Jones at Wesson Women's Hospital in Springfiel ...

Young Jean Lee Young Jean Lee is an American playwright, director, and filmmaker. She was the Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, a not-for-profit theater company dedicated to producing her work. She has written and directed ten shows for Yo ...

, Richard Maxwell, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and

Anne Washburn Anne Washburn is an American playwright. Life Washburn graduated from Reed College and from New York University, with an M.F.A. Her plays have been produced in New York City by Cherry Lane Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Vineyard Theatre, ...

. 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 d ...

'' 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 New ...

'' theatre critic

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...

wrote about current director Sarah Benson: In 2019 the company adopted a shared leadership model. The three Directors of the theater who now co-lead the company are Sarah Benson, 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 Federal Project Number One, also referred to as Federal One, is the collective name for a group of projects under the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program in the United States. Of the $4.88 billion allocated by the Emergency Relief ...

.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 develop ...

. 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 In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...

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 nation ...

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 Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (; 23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play ''Antigone'', an ad ...

Michel de Ghelderode Michel de Ghelderode (born Adémar Adolphe Louis Martens, 3 April 1898 – 1 April 1962) was an avant-garde Belgian dramatist, from Flanders, who spoke and wrote in French. His works often deal with the extremes of human experience, from death an ...

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

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 expe ...

.''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 Adam Bock (born November 4, 1961) is a Canadian playwright currently living in the United States. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In the fall of 1984, Bock studied at the National Theater Institute at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. ...

, Richard Maxwell,

Melissa James Gibson Melissa James Gibson is a Canadian-born playwright based in New York. Life The child of former BC Liberal MLA Gordon Gibson and journalist Valerie Gibson, Melissa James Gibson grew up in North Vancouver. She graduated from Columbia University an ...

, and

María Irene Fornés María Irene Fornés (May 14, 1930 – October 30, 2018) was a Cuban-American playwright, theater director, and teacher who worked in off-Broadway and experimental theater venues in the last four decades of the twentieth century. Her plays range ...

. Sarah Benson 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 prof ...

model of less than 100 seats to an

contract, typically reserved for theatres with a 100-499 seat capacity. 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 ''Blasted'' is the first play by the British author Sarah Kane. It was first performed in 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London. Synopsis The play is set in an expensive hotel room in Leeds. Ian, a foul-mouthed middle-aged tabloid ...

'' which won the director an

. Benson's production of

's ''An Octoroon'' won an Obie for Best New American Play and transferred to

Theatre for a New Audience The Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a non-profit theater in New York City focused on producing Shakespeare and other classic dramas. Its off-Broadway productions have toured in the U.S. and internationally. History Theatre for a New Audienc ...

. Taibi Magar's production of Aleshea Harris' '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 a ...

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 Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Under the ...

, 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 Julie Menin (born October 6, 1967) is a member of the New York City Council from District 5. Before she was elected to this position, she served as an American attorney, civil servant, non-profit executive, professor and small business owner. In ...

.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 * Sarah Benson (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