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 actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...

company based in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

which is notable for producing

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

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 Str ...

section of lower

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. 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 given since 1956 by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theater artists and groups involved in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City. Starting just after th ...

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Awards are among the most esteemed honors in New York theater, recognizing outstanding achievements across Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway productions within the same categories. The awards are considered a signific ...

s, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

.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 Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the inaugural Steinberg ...

, César Alvarez,

Annie Baker Annie Baker (born April 1981) is an American playwright and film director. She is known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play ''The Flick'' (2013). She has written a string of plays which are set in the fictional town of Shirley: '' Body Awareness' ...

Alice Birch Alice Birch (born 1986) 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, George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwr ...

, 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 Debbie Tucker Green (stylized in lower-case as debbie tucker green ) is a British playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has written a number of plays, including ''born bad'' (2003), for which she won the Olivier Award for Most Promising Ne ...

Aleshea Harris Aleshea Harris is an American playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Her play ''Is God Is'' won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. In 2023, her play ''On Sugarland'' was ...

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 (born 1984) is an American playwright. His play ''Purpose'' won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for which his works '' Gloria'' and '' Everybody'' were finalists in 2016 and 2018, respectively. His play '' Appropriate'' ...

, Daniel Alexander Jones,

Young Jean Lee Young Jean Lee (born 1974) 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 s ...

, 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 Theat ...

. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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 may refer to: * A resident of New York: ** A resident of New York City and its suburbs *** List of people from New York City ** A resident of the New York (state), State of New York *** Demographics of New York (state) * ''The New Yor ...

'' 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 Yo ...

wrote about current director

Sarah Benson Sarah Benson is a British director of avant-garde theatre productions based in New York. As a Director of the Soho Rep, a lower Manhattan-based theatre company with an "audacious taste in plays", she is notable for her "commitment to adventurous ...

: In 2019 the company adopted a shared leadership model. The three Directors of the theater of the company

, Cynthia Flowers, and Meropi Peponides led the theater until Benson and Peponides' departure in 2023. In 2023, Caleb Hammons and Eric Ting joined Cynthia Flowers as co-directors of the theater. 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 (Fed 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 United States Dollar, $4.88 billion all ...

.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, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

. 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. Anderson faced many challenges in his career, frequently losing jobs for expressing his opinions or supporting ...

's ''

Key Largo Key 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 by U.S. Highway ...

'', on September 25. Their initial focus was on rarely seen classical plays, such as works by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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 natio ...

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 great writers in the French language and world liter ...

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

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

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

and

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 ...

.''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 John McDowell Wellman (born March 7, 1945), is an American playwright, author, and poet.Mac Wellman pape ...

. After 1989, Swartz partnered with English director Julian Webber, and they worked together for the next decade until Swartz departed in 1999. 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 British Columbia Liberal Party, BC Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly, MLA Gordon Gibson (politician, born 1937), Gordon Gibson and journalist ...

, 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 w ...

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 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 ...

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 tablo ...

'' 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 William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and other classic dramas. Its off-Broadway productions have toured in the U.S. and internationally. History Thea ...

. Taibi Magar's production of

' '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 American 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. ...

, 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 John McDowell Wellman (born March 7, 1945), is an American playwright, author, and poet.Mac Wellman pape ...

. After a year they moved to Greenwich Village, and stayed there until 1991, when they found their present-day space at 46 Walker Street in

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 Str ...

. 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'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' In July 2024, Soho Rep announced it would be leaving its longtime home of Walkerspace, citing rising rent costs, lack of accessibility, and the costs of persistent repairs. The company will share space with

as it considers long-term plans.

Staff

* Marlene Swartz, Co-Artistic Director (1975–1995) * Jerry Engelbach, Co-Artistic Director (1975–1989) * Julian Webber, Co-Artistic Director (1990–1998) * Daniel Aukin, Artistic Director (1998–2006) *

, **Artistic Director (2007–2019) **Director (2019-2023) *Meropi Peponides **Producer (2014–2019) **Director (2019-2023) *Cynthia Flowers **Executive Director (2012–2019) **Director (2019–present) *Caleb Hammons **Producer (2011–2013) **Director (2023–present) *Eric Ting **Director (2023–present) Since 2019, Soho Rep has used a shared leadership model.

Dramatic productions

References

External links

SohoRep.org Official website

SoHo Repertory Theater
at Internet Off-Broadway Database
SoHo Repertory
on NYC-Arts.org {{Authority control Off-Broadway theaters Theatre companies in New York City Performance art in New York City Tribeca