Address | 40 North 2nd Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States |
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Coordinates | 39°57′14″N75°08′37″W / 39.953767°N 75.143609°W |
Type | Regional theatre |
Capacity | F. Otto Haas: 360 Arcadia: 175 |
Opened | 1988 (company) |
Website | |
www |
The Arden Theatre Company is a professional regional theatre company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company includes three theatres: the 175-seat Arcadia Stage and the 360-seat F. Otto Haas Stage, located in the main property at 40 N 2nd Street; and the 100-seat Bob and Selma Horan Studio Theater at the Hamilton Family Arts Center up the block at 62 N 2nd Street. In addition to the theater spaces, the two properties also house the Arden's administrative offices, production shops, rehearsal space, and classrooms for its educational programming through Arden Drama School. [1]
Founded in 1988 by Terrence J. Nolen, Amy Murphy, and Aaron Posner, the Arden Theatre Company began producing at the Walnut Street Theatre Studio. [2] After the second season, the St. Stephen's Performing Arts Center was co-founded to provide a larger theatre (150 seats) and a unified location for classes, education programs, administrative offices, and production shops.
In 1994, Arden Theatre Company purchased a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) former post office building in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood. [2] The building was renovated to contain a 360-seat main stage theatre (F. Otto Haas Stage); a 175-seat studio theatre (Arcadia Stage); a bi-level lobby with box office, elevator, and restrooms; rehearsal and classroom space; and administrative and production offices. The company claimed that its move played a role in the economic revitalization of the area and during his term as Mayor, Ed Rendell said, "When I think of nonprofit organizations that are having a major economic impact on their neighborhoods, none comes to mind sooner than the Arden." [3]
The company has produced over 90 professional productions with 24 world premiere productions among them. [4] [5] The Arden Theatre Company created the Independence Foundation New Play Showcase in 1999, with a goal of staging a new play every season as well as holding workshops and a free public reading of an additional new play. The theatre was awarded grants for past and future development of the arts. [6] [7]
The Arden Theatre company has an educational program included in the company's Arden Drama School. [8]
As of 2008 [update] , the Arden has received eight Philadelphia Magazine "Best of Philly" Awards, four "Theatre Company of the Year" citations from The Philadelphia Inquirer , and six Philadelphia City Paper Reader's choice Awards. Arden Theatre has also received 250 nominations and 53 awards from the Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater. [9] [10]
Walnut Street Theatre, founded in 1808 at 825 Walnut Street, on the corner of S. 9th Street in the Washington Square West neighborhood of Philadelphia, is the oldest operating theatre in the United States. The venue is operated by Walnut Street Theatre Company, a non-profit organization, and has three stages: the Mainstage, for the company's primary and larger productions, the Independence Studio on 3, a studio located on the building's third floor for smaller productions, and the Studio 5 on the fifth floor, which is rented out for independent productions.
Awake and Sing! is a drama written by American playwright Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced by The Group Theatre in 1935.
The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a Broadway theater at 241 West 47th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1928, it was designed by Herbert J. Krapp in the Elizabethan, Mediterranean, and Adam styles for the Shubert family. The theater, named in honor of actress Ethel Barrymore, has 1,058 seats and is operated by the Shubert Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium interior are New York City landmarks.
The Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre is an annual, nationally-recognized award program that is sponsored by Theatre Philadelphia for professional theater productions in the Greater Philadelphia area. Each season culminates with an awards ceremony.
Michael Jerrod Moore, known professionally as Michael Arden, is an American actor, singer, musician, and theatre director. Arden won a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical in 2023 for the revival of the musical Parade.
John Doyle is a Scottish stage director of musicals and plays, as well as operas. He served as artistic director at several regional theatres in the United Kingdom, where he staged more than 200 professional productions during his career spanning over 40 years.
Raúl Eduardo Esparza is an American stage, screen, and voice actor, as well as singer. Considered one of Broadway's leading men since the 2000s, he is best known for his Tony Award-nominated performance as Bobby in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company and for his television role as New York Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he had a recurring role in Season 14 and was promoted to a series regular in Seasons 15 to 19.
Frost/Nixon is a 2006 British historical play by screenwriter and dramatist Peter Morgan based on a series of controversial televised interviews of the same name that former U.S. President Richard Nixon had granted English broadcaster David Frost in 1977 about his administration, including his role in the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to his resignation.
Lantern Theater Company is a not-for-profit regional theater founded in 1994 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Led by founding artistic director Charles McMahon and managing director Anne Shuff, the Lantern produces a mix of classics, modern, and original works for the stage, an audience enrichment series that provides an insider's look at each production, and Illumination, its Barrymore Award-winning education program that engages local students and adults in the world of theater and nurtures their artistic expression through in-school residencies, student matinee performances, and teaching artist training for after school programs.
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant is a satirical musical about Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, written by Kyle Jarrow from a concept by Alex Timbers, the show's original director. Jarrow based the story of the one-act, one-hour musical on Hubbard's writings and Church of Scientology literature. The musical follows the life of Hubbard as he develops Dianetics and then Scientology. Though the musical pokes fun at Hubbard's science fiction writing and personal beliefs, it has been called a "deadpan presentation" of his life story. Topics explored in the piece include Dianetics, the E-meter, Thetans, and the story of Xenu. The show was originally presented in 2003 in New York City by Les Freres Corbusier, an experimental theater troupe, enjoying sold-out Off-Off-Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. Later productions have included Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Jennie Elizabeth Eisenhower is an American actress and director. She has performed in theater productions Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, being nominated for seven Barrymore Awards and winning two of them. She has played minor roles in several feature films. She is a great-granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower and granddaughter of Richard Nixon, both presidents of the United States.
Terrence Nolen, usually called Terry Nolen, is an American theater director and the producing artistic director of the Arden Theatre Company.
EgoPo Classic Theater is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit repertory theater specializing in performing "Classic Theater on the Edge," often producing works of a collaborative nature that incorporates original music, dance, and masks. It was founded in 1991 in San Francisco by Lane Savadove who remains the company's Artistic Director. EgoPo has staged over two dozen productions and hundreds of performances in Philadelphia, New York, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington D.C., and internationally, in Indonesia and Croatia. A volunteer Board of Directors governs EgoPo. EgoPo is headquartered at 1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
Charles Gilbert Jr. is a writer, composer, director and educator who specializes in musical theater. Currently a Professor of Theater Arts in the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Gilbert served as Director of the Brind School from 2008 to 2013 after heading its Musical Theater Program for nearly twenty years. He developed the SAVI System of Singing-Acting and has taught students using this pedagogy in workshops and residencies in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Among his works for the musical stage is the 1990 musical Assassins, source of the idea for Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical of the same name.
Miller Theater, originally the Sam S. Shubert Theatre and formerly the Merriam Theater, is Philadelphia's most continuous location for touring Broadway show theatre. It is located at 250 South Broad Street within the Avenue of the Arts cultural district of Center City Philadelphia. The Theatre was built by The Shubert Organization in 1918.
Anne Kauffman is an American director known primarily for her work on new plays, mainly in the New York area. She is a founding member of the theater group the Civilians. She made her Broadway debut with the Scott McPherson play Marvin's Room (2017) and returned with the revival of the Lorraine Hansberry play The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (2023).
Jordan Harrison is an American playwright. He grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His play Marjorie Prime was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj is an Indo-Afro-Caribbean American theater director, playwright, producer and activist. He holds an associate degree in Criminal Justice from St. John's University, a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts from St. John's University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatrical Directing from Brooklyn College. He is currently the Associate Artistic Producer of Milwaukee Repertory Theater. He started Rebel Theater Company in 2003 in New York City, and served as Producing Artistic Director. He is the former Artistic Director of New Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia. He is the Third Vice President for the Brooklyn Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He is the Chair of the Equity in the Arts and Culture Committee for the NAACP Brooklyn Branch.
Laura Eason is an American playwright and screenwriter.
Matthew Decker is an American theater director, screenwriter, and playwright from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. With Erin Reilly, he co-founded Theatre Horizon in 2005, a professional theatre company in Norristown, PA where he served as Co-Artistic Director.