What we can learn from 40 years of New York theatre history

Beyond Broadway, there was even more change. Companies that were influential at varying scales faded out. The Ridiculous Theatrical Company ultimately closed following the loss of its guiding light Charles Ludlam to AIDS. Circle Repertory Company, home to a squad of distinctly American playwrights, most prominently Lanford Wilson, was all but gone by the late 1990s. WPA Theater, which fostered the creative team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken and birthed their perennial hit Little Shop of Horrors, ceased production come the new millennium. The estimable Negro Ensemble Company, following important work particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, would cease under its original structure by 1990.

Yet many other companies began or significantly grew in this period, now familiar names like the Atlantic Theater Company, Theatre for a New Audience, Signature Theatre Company, Second Stage Theater, Primary Stages and MCC Theater among them. The steady blurring of lines between not-for-profit and commercial was accelerated as Roundabout Theatre, Second Stage and Manhattan Theatre Club all established Broadway homes. The theatres have been instrumental in keeping plays present on Broadway, although even they now dip into the more lucrative world of musicals too.

There are a few genuine constants Off-Broadway. Most notably the Public Theater’s home on Astor Place, which has remained its base even as other theatres expanded. There’s also the unrivalled tenure of Lynne Meadow as artistic director of MTC, dating back to the early 1970s, rolls on. And don’t forget the tendency of the media – legacy and new – to pay more attention to Broadway, when work in smaller spaces is at least as compelling and often more influential to the field’s pursuit of art, not just commerce.

Continues…

This precis of New York theatre history is hardly complete. It’s simply a gloss of what came to my mind last Saturday, when I saw Vladimir by Erika Sheffer – the story of journalists in the early years of Putin’s takeover of Russia – and again on Sunday when I saw Fatherland, a verbatim play devised and directed by Stephen Sachs, drawn from court transcripts of a man on trial for his role in the January 6 US Capitol riots. Both were politically minded works that could be seen as existing in coincidental conversation with one another, since Vladmir was produced by MTC while Fatherland, a transfer from the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, was a rental by MTC to a small commercial production.

This capsule of mine also focuses on companies, and buildings, not art, because it is a macro view, and because there has been dynamic creativity throughout. There’s no question that there’s a wider range of work on offer now, and that the white men who dominated decades ago as playwrights, directors and artistic directors have of late had to literally share many of these stages; surveys such as the Count by the Lillys and the Dramatists Guild and the Visibility Report by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition have been essential in both prompting and recording those shifts.

Yes, I can miss certain aspects of the New York theatre that existed at the beginning of my career – the Promenade Theatre on the Upper West Side, half-price Broadway tickets at TKTS that cost perhaps $25, standing in the lobby of the New York Times waiting for the first papers to come off the printing press so I could ferry the reviews back to my bosses – but while I believe the history is important to understanding how we got to where we are, it’s more important to focus on where we are today and how we get somewhere better. After all, theatre can change. I’ve seen it happen.

This week in US theatre

John Leguizamo and Luna Lauren Velez lead the cast of The Other Americans, which begins performances tonight (October 18) at Arena Stage in Washington DC. Ruben Santiago-Hudson directs Leguizamo’s new play, which, in contrast to his earlier stage comedies, is described as a drama about a laundromat owner struggling with a failing business.

Jamie Lloyd’s radical look at Sunset Boulevard, with its book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, opens on October 20 on Broadway. Nicole Scherzinger repeats her lauded London performance as Norma Desmond.

Delia Ephron has turned her memoir of late in life romance, Left on Tenth, into a Broadway play, opening on October 23 with Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher in the central roles, directed by Susan Stroman. It continues a Broadway legacy for the Ephron family, following plays by her sister Nora (Lucky Guy; Imaginary Friends) and parents Phoebe and Henry (Take Her, She’s Mine; My Daughter, Your Son).

Ngozi Anyanwu invokes the myth of musician Robert Johnson and two souls meeting at a Mississippi crossroads in Leroy and Lucy, beginning performances at Steppenwolf in Chicago on October 24. Awoye Timpo directs Jon Michael Hill and Brittany Bradford in the title roles.

Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler are the latest in a long line of Broadway’s tragic teen lovers, with Romeo + Juliet opening on October 24 under Sam Gold’s direction, in a production that prominently features music by Jack Antonoff and choreography by Sonya Tayeh in its marketing.