Soho Repertory Theatre

Founding and history

The Soho Repertory Theatre (known as Soho Rep.) was founded in July 1975 by Jerry Engelbach and Marlene Swartz. As co-artistic directors they produced over a hundred plays until Engelbach left in 1989. Swartz then partnered with English director Julian Webber, until she herself left in 1999. The company has since been helmed by Artistic Directors Daniel Aukin (1999 to 2006), followed by Sarah Benson (2006 to present). The company has moved locations many times, from Greenwich Street, to Bellevue Hospital, to their current location at 46 Walker Street. Soho Rep. is known for producing new and avante-garde works, though their founding mission was to produce rarely seen classics. In 2007 Soho Rep. transitioned away from an Off Off Broadway contract to an Off Broadway contract.

Soho Rep’s founding mission was to present rare classical plays. After four seasons, in 1979, they were able to claim the largest subscription audience of any Off Off Broadway Theater company operating at the time. After several years, in 1981, after producing works from Shakespeare to Shaw; the theater produced its first new play, Stephen Davis Parks' The Idol Makers. After 1981 Soho Rep. began to produce more and more new plays. Included in their New York premieres were the stage version of Rod Serling’s television play Requiem for a Heavyweight, J. P. Donleavy’s Fairy Tales of New York, and Preston Sturges’ A Cup of Coffee, the stage play on which he based his film Christmas in July. Among the many new works presented were plays by Americans Len Jenkin and Mac Wellman, and Britons Nicholas Wright, David Lan, and Barrie Keeffe. In 1998 Daniel Aukin became Artistic Director and produced new work by artists including Adam Bock, Young Jean Lee, Richard Maxwell, Melissa James Gibson, and María Irene Fornés.

In 2005, Soho Rep was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In 2006 Sarah Benson became the fourth Artistic Director of the company. She directed the New York premiere of Sarah Kane's Blasted to critical acclaim in fall 2008, and has produced and directed work by other contemporary playwrights including John Jesurun, Young Jean Lee, David Adjmi, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Annie Baker, debbie tucker green, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. In 2012, David Adjimi was awarded a Mellon Foundation playwright residency grant with Soho Rep for three years. His play, Marie Antoinette opened the 2013–2014 season.

Prominent artists who have worked at Soho Rep. include Reed Birney, Steve Buscemi, Jonathan Frakes, Allison Janney, Mark Margolis, Steve Mellor, Tim Blake Nelson, Ed O'Neill, Will Patton, John C. Reilly, Bill Sadler, John Seitz, Kevin Spacey, and Kathleen Turner.

Founders

Soho Rep. was founded by Jerry Engelbach and Marlene Swartz in 1975. They were both former members of Classic Stage Company. In June 1975 they began remodeling a textiles factory in the SoHo district of Manhattan, and on September 25, 1975 they opened their doors with a production of Maxwell Anderson's Key Largo. Their first theater was located at 19 Mercer Street, between Grand Street and Canal Street, only two blocks away from the space Soho Rep. occupies now on Walker Street. The new repertory theater was designed to run multiple productions from one night to the next. They expected to produce both rarely seen classic plays, and works by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Molière, Jean Anouilh, Michel de Ghelderode, Eugene O'Neill and Samuel Beckett. Engelbach and Swartz said that they wanted the space to feel, “light and informal. We want the audience to feel the space itself is comfortable and interesting and to do productions in a way which prove to be the most theatrical and immediate for them.” By 1979 the theater was consistently running two shows in repertory, even allowing audiences to see both plays in succession on Saturday nights.

Current Artistic Director

Sarah Benson is a British theater director based in New York City. She became Artistic Director of Soho Repertory Theater, Inc in 2007. She is the fourth artistic director at Soho Rep.

A graduate of King's College London, she first came to the U.S. on a Fulbright award for theater direction to study at Brooklyn College, where she earned her MFA.

At Soho Rep. she directed the production of Sarah Kane’s Blasted for which she received an OBIE award, Gregory S. Moss' Orange Hat and Grace, David Adjmi's Elective Affinities in a site-specific production, Lucas Hnath’s A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, and An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins which one an Obie for Best New American Play and was transferred to Theatre for a New Audience for an extended run. She has also directed new works by artists including Polly Stenham, and the Brooklyn-based indie-rock band The Lisps.

She has commissioned and produced new works by Nature Theater of Oklahoma, John Jesurun, Young Jean Lee, Annie Baker, debbie tucker green, Cynthia Hopkins, and Daniel Alexander Jones. This work has been honored with 10 OBIE awards.

Past artistic staff

Current staff

Performance spaces

From the founding of the theater in 1975 till January 1985, Soho Repertory Theater produced all of their work out of a converted hat warehouse on 19 Mercer Street in the neighborhood of SoHo in New York City. In 1985, due to increased rents, the company was forced to move. They were close to homeless before Bob Moss (Playwrights Horizons), Mayor Koch's Office, and a grant from the Manhattan Borough President stepped in to assist them in finding a temporary home. That new home was a 100-seat neo-classical theater attached to Bellevue Hospital, located in the Kips Bay neighborhood of New York City. Soho Rep. produced for one year in this retrofitted hospital auditorium before being forced out to due government regulations. The next space they found was Greenwich House in Greenwich Village, and was shared with multiple other companies. They stayed in the Village until 1991, when they found their present-day space at 46 Walker Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City.

19 Mercer Street

Soho Rep.'s first home was a converted textile warehouse in the SoHo district of New York City. The theater was 22’5” x 91’, and was designed to have audiences on three sides of the stage, with two doors on the upstage wall that led back to dressing rooms. Along the backstage wall there was a balcony which was often used as a playing area. The house held 90 audience members. The founders, Engelbach and Swartz, referred to the space as "a practical adaptation of the Shakespearean playhouse laid out in a modest modern space.” The company took over the building in June 1975, and began occupancy in July of the same year.

Bellevue Hospital

In April 1984, after almost ten years of residency in their Mercer Street location, Soho Rep. was given 90 days to clear out of their space. Bob Moss, founder of Playwrights Horizons, along with the Mayor's office and the office of the Manhattan Borough President, assisted in finding them a new, temporary, home. The new theater was a 100-seat neo-Classical auditorium located at Bellevue Hospital in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan on 29th Street and First Avenue. Though it was a part of the hospital, it did have a separate entrance. Despite it technically being separate, playwright Mac Wellman remembers, "I wrote a play called Energumen, produced by Soho Rep in their one season at Bellevue. (Yes, the hospital.) To make a cross backstage, one had to take the main corridor of the psychiatric ward. Once, our actors (costumed as Santas and a Master of Many Perfections) took the elevator from their dressing room and found themselves accompanied by two policemen and a prisoner in chains. Never could figure out that damn play."

Greenwich House

After less than a year at Bellevue Hospital, due to "city bureaucracy" Soho Rep. was forced to leave the hospital auditorium and once again look for a new home. In 1986 they landed at Greenwich House, a century old Settlement House located at 27 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village. There they set up residency alongside other downtown theater companies.

Walker Space

Located at 46 Walker Street, Walkerspace was officially moved into in 1991. Feeling the need to no longer share a space, then Artistic Directors Swartz and Webber, moved the company to their present-day location, only two blocks away from where Swartz and Engelbach founded the company. 46 Walker Street is 22′ W x 27’D, with a 73-seat house.