Metropolitan Playhouse 220 E4 St Connelly Theater jeh

The Metropolitan Playhouse is a resident producing theater 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 ...

's East Village. Founded in 1992, the theater is devoted to presenting plays that explore American culture and history, including seldom-produced, "lost" American plays and new plays about or derived from American history and literature. Included among its best known revivals are Abram Hill's ''On Strivers Row'',

Owen Davis Owen Gould Davis (January 29, 1874 – October 14, 1956) was an American dramatist known for writing more than 200 plays and having most produced. In 1919, he became the first elected president of the Dramatists Guild of America. He received t ...

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 ...

winning ''Icebound'', George L. Aiken's adaptation of ''

Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U ...

'',

Jacob Gordin Jacob Michailovitch Gordin (Yiddish: יעקב מיכאַילאָװיטש גאָרדין; May 1, 1853 – June 11, 1909) was a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing realism an ...

's The Jewish King Lear (in a translation by Ruth Gay), '' The Great Divide'' by

William Vaughn Moody William Vaughn Moody (July 8, 1869 – October 17, 1910) was an American dramatist and poet. Moody was author of ''The Great Divide'', first presented under the title of ''The Sabine Woman'' at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago on April 12, 1906. Hi ...

, ''

The Drunkard ''The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved'' is an American temperance play first performed on February 12, 1844.

'' by W. H. Smith, '' Inheritors'' by

Susan Glaspell Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company. First know ...

, '' The Melting Pot'' by

Israel Zangwill Israel Zangwill (21 January 18641 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and be ...

, '' The City'' by

Clyde Fitch Clyde Fitch (May 2, 1865 – September 4, 1909) was an American dramatist, the most popular writer for the Broadway stage of his time (c. 1890–1909). Biography Born in Elmira, New York, and educated at Holderness School and Amherst College (c ...

, '' Metamora'' by John Augustus Stone, ''

Sun-Up ''Sun-Up'' is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Edmund Goulding based upon a successful 1924 play of the same name by Lula Vollmer. The film stars Lucille La Verne, replaying her successful New York stage role, Pauline Starke, and C ...

'' by Lula Vollmer, and ''

The New York Idea Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (February 17, 1862 – October 21, 1935) was an American playwright popular on Broadway in the early twentieth century. He was the son of a noted writer and neurologist, S. Weir Mitchell (inventor of the "rest cure"), an ...

'' by

Langdon Mitchell Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (February 17, 1862 – October 21, 1935) was an American playwright popular on Broadway in the early twentieth century. He was the son of a noted writer and neurologist, S. Weir Mitchell (inventor of the "rest cure"), an ...

, and numerous early one-act plays by

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, earli ...

. The company has also staged three 'Living Newspapers' from the

Federal Theater Project The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States. It was one of five Federal Pro ...

: Arthur Arent's ''Power'' in 2007, '' One-Third of a Nation'' in 2011, and ''Injunction Granted'' in 2015. During the first 15 months of the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

pandemic, the playhouse presented weekly readings online of American plays and short stories, as well as occasional concerts and improvised performance including the work of Zero Boy, the Area 9 Quartet, Amanda Selwyn Dance, all as a part of its ''Virtual Playhouse'' series. Metropolitan has been led by Producing Artistic Director Alex Roe since 2001.

East Village Theater Festival

In addition to historical American performance, Metropolitan Playhouse also dedicates itself to the exploration and celebration of the neighborhood in which it resides. The annual East Side Stories Festival (alternately known as the East Village Theater Festival) includes one or both of the theater's new works series: East Village Chronicles, a collection of new short plays inspired by the history and lore of the East Village, and Alphabet City, a collection of solo performance pieces derived from interviews with neighborhood residents. In addition to these two performance series, East Side Stories often feature readings of other plays, gallery presentations by local artists, and panel discussions of issues facing the neighborhood in the past and present.

External links

* {{coord, 40, 43, 24.5, N, 73, 59, 0.3, W, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title Theatres completed in 1992 Off-Broadway theaters Theatres in Manhattan East Village, Manhattan