The Lucille Lortel Theatre 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 th ...

playhouse at 121

Christopher Street Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue. It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher St ...

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 ...

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 traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to th ...

. It was built in 1926 as a 590-seat movie theater called the New Hudson, later known as Hudson Playhouse. The interior is largely unchanged to this day. In the early 1950s, the site was converted to an off-Broadway theater as , opening on June 9, 1953, with a production of ''Maya'', a play by

Simon Gantillon Simon Gantillon (7 January 1887 in Lyon – 9 September 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a 20th-century French screenwriter and playwright. Filmography ; Screenwriter * 1932: '' Sergeant X'' by Vladimir Strizhevsky * 1938: ''Gibraltar'' by Fedo ...

starring

Kay Medford Margaret Kathleen Regan (September 14, 1919 – April 10, 1980), better known as Kay Medford, was an American actress. For her performance as Rose Brice in the musical '' Funny Girl'' and the film adaptation of the same name, she was nominated ...

, Vivian Matalon, and Susan Strasberg. It closed after seven performances. Much more successful was ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a " play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with mu ...

'' which opened March 10, 1954, with a cast that included

Bea Arthur Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel; May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009) was an American actress and comedian. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, Arthur began her career on stage in 1947, attracting critical acclaim before achieving ...

John Astin John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is an American actor and director who has appeared in numerous stage, television and film roles. He is best known for starring in '' The Addams Family'' (1964–1966), as patriarch Gomez Addams, reprising ...

, Lotte Lenya,

Leon Lishner Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

, Scott Merrill, Gerald Price,

Charlotte Rae Charlotte Rae Lubotsky (April 22, 1926 – August 5, 2018) was an American character actress and singer whose career spanned six decades. Rae was known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms '' Diff'rent Strokes'' and its spin-off, ...

and Jo Sullivan. Because of an incoming booking, it was forced to close after 96 performances. Re-opening September 20, 1955, with largely the same cast, ''The Threepenny Opera'' this time played until December 17, 1961, a then record-setting run for a musical in New York City. In 1955, financier Louis Schweitzer acquired the building as an anniversary present for his wife, actress-producer

Lucille Lortel Lucille Lortel (née Wadler, December 16, 1900 – April 4, 1999) was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for ...

. In 1981, the year of her 81st birthday, the theatre was renamed in her honor. After Lortel's death in April 1999, she left the theatre to the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

Timeline of productions

*1953: ''Maya'' *1953: '' The Scarecrow'' *1953: ''

The School for Scandal ''The School for Scandal'' is a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 May 1777. Plot Act I Scene I: Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling S ...

'' *1953: '' The Little Clay Cart'' *1953: ''Little Red Riding Hood'' *1953: ''End as a Man'' *1953: '' The Knight of the Burning Pestle'' *1953: ''Moon in Capricorn'' *1954: ''Bullfight'' *1954: ''

'' *1955: ''The Immortal Husband'' *1955: ''Teach Me How to Cry'' *1955: ''

'' *1956: ''

Cry, the Beloved Country ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder. American publisher Benn ...

'' *1956: ''Lovers, Villains and Fools of Shakespeare'' *1956: ''U.S.A.'' *1957: ''The Happy Prince'' *1957: ''The Birthday of the Infanta'' *1957: ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'' *1957: '' Pelléas and Mélisande'' *1957: ''Metamorphosis'' *1957: '' Candida'' *1957: ''World Famous Dramatic Recitals'' *1957: ''Pale Horse, Pale Rider'' *1957: ''Santa Claus'' *1957: ''For the Time Being'' *1958: ''

Edward II Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to ...

'' *1958: ''Guests of the Nation'' *1958: ''Aria Da Capo'' *1958: ''Maidens and Mistresses at Home at the Zoo'' *1958: ''The Catbird Seat'' *1958: '' Riders to the Sea'' *1958: ''

Blood Wedding ''Blood Wedding'' ( es, link=no, Bodas de sangre) is a tragedy by Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1932 and first performed at Teatro Beatriz in Madrid in March 1933, then later that year in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ...

'' *1958: ''Curtains Up'' *1959: ''Philoctetes (Andre Gide play)'' *1959: '' Philoctetes (Sophocles play)'' *1959: ''Sweet Confession'' *1959: '' I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix'' *1959: ''Soul Gone Home'' *1959: ''Shakespeare in Harlem'' *1959: ''This Music Crept by Me Upon the Waters'' *1959: ''

A Masque of Reason A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

'' *1959: '' The Purification'' *1959: ''Glory in the Flower'' *1960: '' Victims of Duty'' *1960: ''Notes from the Underground'' *1960: ''Too Close for Comfort'' *1960: ''The Gay Apprentice'' *1960: ''The Coggerers'' *1960: ''Time to Go'' *1960: ''Nekros'' *1960: ''Fam and Yam'' *1960: '' Embers'' *1960: ''The Lady Akane'' *1960: ''Hanjo'' *1960: ''The Shepherd's Chameleon'' *1964: ''

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 h ...

'' *1967: ''The Viewing'', (

Lyle Kessler Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, best known internationally for his 1983 play '' Orphans''. Career Actor Born in Philadelphia, Kessler began his career as an actor. His first professional appearance was in the Ph ...

);

The Deer Park ''The Deer Park'' is a Hollywood novel written by Norman Mailer and published in 1955 by G.P. Putnam's Sons after it was rejected by Mailer's publisher, Rinehart & Company, for obscenity. Despite having already typeset the book, Rinehart claime ...

*1967 Now Is the Time for All Good Men *1968: '' House of Flowers''; ''

Private Lives ''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetu ...

'' *1968 Futz *1969: '' Dames at Sea'' *1971: ''

Black Girl Black women are women of sub-Saharan African and Afro-diasporic descent, as well as women of Australian Aboriginal and Melanesian descent. The term 'Black' is a racial classification of people, the definition of which has shifted over time and a ...

'' *1971 Acrobats/Line *1973: ''

Moonchildren ''Moonchildren'' (originally titled ''Cancer'') is a play by Brooklyn-based playwright Michael Weller. The play chronicles a year in the life of the "moonchildren" referred to in the title: eight college students living communally together in an ...

'' *1973: ''The Children’s Mass'' *1976: '' Eden'' *1977

A Life in the Theatre ''A Life in the Theatre'' is a 1977 play by David Mamet. It focuses on the relationship between two actors, the play's only characters. One, Robert, is a stage veteran while John is a young, promising actor. As the play goes on they are involv ...

*1981: '' Cloud 9''; ''

A Soldier's Play ''A Soldier's Play'' is a play by American playwright Charles Fuller. Set on a US Army installation in the segregation-era South, the play is a loose adaptation of Herman Melville's novella ''Billy Budd'', and follows the murder investigation ...

'' *1984: '' 'night, Mother'' *1987: '' Steel Magnolias'' *1990: '' Falsettoland'' *1992: '' Lips Together, Teeth Apart''; '' The Destiny of Me'' *1995 Mrs. Klein *1996: '' The Boys in the Band'' *1997: '' As Bees In Honey Drown'' *2004: '' Fat Pig'' *2006: ''

Some Girl(s) ''Some Girl(s)'' is a play written by Neil LaBute about a man only identified as "Guy" who is about to get married. Before his wedding, he decides to visit his ex-girlfriends, all of whom he mistreated. His exes include: Sam, his former high scho ...

'' *2007: ''

In a Dark Dark House ''In a Dark Dark House'' is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. The play tells a tale of sexual and emotional abuse and two brothers who attempt to overcome it. Productions ''In a Dark Dark House'' had its world premiere Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lorte ...

'' *2007: ''

Seussical ''Seussical'' is a musical comedy by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, based on the many children's stories of Dr. Seuss, with most of its plot being based on ''Horton Hears a Who!'', '' Gertrude McFuzz'', and ''Horton Hatches the Egg'' while in ...

'' *2008: '' reasons to be pretty'' *2009: ''

Coraline ''Coraline'' () is a dark fantasy horror children's novella by British author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman started writing ''Coraline'' in 1990, and it was published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and HarperCollins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best ...

'' *2012: '' Carrie'' *2016: ''

'' *2016: ''

Ride the Cyclone ''Ride the Cyclone'' is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell. It is the second installment in Richmond's "Uranium Teen Scream Trilogy," a collection of three theatrical works, one not yet written, that take p ...

'' *2017: ''

The Lightning Thief ''The Lightning Thief'' is a 2005 American fantasy- adventure novel based on Greek mythology, the first young adult novel written by Rick Riordan in the ''Percy Jackson & the Olympians'' series. It won the Adult Library Services Association ...

In popular culture

*In 1970, the theatre was used in "Manhattan Manhunt", a first-season episode of '' McCloud''. It used both interior and an exterior shots with the original marquee "". *In 1996–97, for the TV comedy ''

Friends ''Friends'' is an American television sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Li ...

'' , the theatre was used for the filming of 3 episodes of

season 3 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In tempera ...

: episode 19 ("The One with the Tiny T-Shirt"), episode 20 ("The One with the Dollhouse"), and episode 22 ("The One with the Screamer"), which guest-starred

Ben Stiller Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is the son of the comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Stiller was a member of a group of comedic actors colloquially known ...

as Rachel's crazy boyfriend Tommy.

References

External links

* *
Productions
past and future * * * {{Authority control Off-Broadway theaters 1953 establishments in New York City Christopher Street