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 than 100.
An "off-Broadway production" is a production of a play, musical, or revue that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. [1] Some shows that premiere off-Broadway are subsequently produced on Broadway. [2]
The term originally referred to any venue, and its productions, on a street intersecting Broadway in Midtown Manhattan's Theater District, the hub of the American theatre industry. It later became defined by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers as a professional venue in Manhattan with a seating capacity of at least 100, but not more than 499, or a production that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. [1]
Previously, regardless of the size of the venue, a theatre was considered a Broadway (rather than off-Broadway) house if it was within the "Broadway Box", extending from 40th Street north to 54th Street and from Sixth Avenue west to Eighth Avenue, including Times Square and West 42nd Street. This change to the contractual definition of "off-Broadway" benefited theatres satisfying the 499-seat criterion because of the lower minimum required salary for Actors' Equity performers at Off-Broadway theatres as compared with the salary requirements of the union for Broadway theatres. [3] The adoption of the 499-seat criterion occurred after a one-day strike in January 1974. [4] Examples of off-Broadway theatres within the Broadway Box are the Laura Pels Theatre and The Theater Center.
The off-Broadway movement started in the 1950s as a reaction to the perceived commercialism of Broadway and provided less expensive venues for shows that have employed many future Broadway artists. An early success was Circle in the Square Theatre's 1952 production of Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams. [5] According to theatre historians Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik, Off-Broadway offered a new outlet for "poets, playwrights, actors, songwriters, and designers. ... The first great Off-Broadway musical was the 1954 revival" of The Threepenny Opera , which proved that off-Broadway productions could be financially successful. [6] Theatre Row, on West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues in Manhattan, is a concentration of off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theatres. It was developed in the mid-1970s and modernized in 2002. [7]
Many off-Broadway shows have had subsequent runs on Broadway, including such musicals as Hair , Godspell , Little Shop of Horrors , Sunday in the Park with George , Rent , Grey Gardens , Urinetown , Avenue Q , The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee , Rock of Ages , In the Heights , Spring Awakening , Next to Normal , Hedwig and the Angry Inch , Fun Home , Hamilton , Dear Evan Hansen , Hadestown , and Kimberly Akimbo . [8] In particular, two that became Broadway hits, Grease and A Chorus Line , encouraged other producers to premiere their shows off-Broadway. [6] Plays that have moved from off-Broadway houses to Broadway include Doubt , I Am My Own Wife , Bridge & Tunnel , The Normal Heart , and Coastal Disturbances . Other productions, such as Stomp , Blue Man Group , Altar Boyz , Perfect Crime , Forbidden Broadway , Nunsense , Naked Boys Singing , Bat Boy: The Musical , and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change have had runs of many years off-Broadway, never moving to Broadway. The Fantasticks , the longest-running musical in theatre history, spent its original 42-year run off-Broadway and had another off-Broadway run from 2006 to 2017. [9]
Off-Broadway shows, performers, and creative staff are eligible for the following awards: the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Obie Award (presented since 1956 by The Village Voice ), the Lucille Lortel Award (created in 1985 by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres & Producers), and the Drama League Award. Although off-Broadway shows are not eligible for Tony Awards, an exception was made in 1956 (before the rules were changed), when Lotte Lenya won Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for the off-Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera . [10]
Capacity is based on the capacity given for the respective theatre at the Internet Off-Broadway Database.
Theatre | Address | Capacity |
---|---|---|
47th Street Theatre | W. 47th St. (No. 304) | 196 |
59E59 Theaters, Theatre A | E. 59th St. (No. 59) | 196 |
777 Theatre | 8th Ave. (No. 777) | 158 |
Abrons Arts Center, Playhouse Theatre | Grand St. (No. 466) | 300 |
Actors Temple Theatre | W. 47th St. (No. 339) | 199 |
Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre | W. 42nd St. (No. 480) | 191 |
Anne L. Bernstein Theater | W. 50th St. (No. 210) | 199 |
Anspacher Theatre | Lafayette St. (No. 425) | 275 |
Astor Place Theatre | Lafayette St. (No. 434) | 298 |
Barrow Street Theatre | Barrow St. (No. 27) | 199 |
Cherry Lane Theatre | Commerce St. (No. 38) | 179 |
Claire Tow Theater | W. 65th St. (No. 150) | 112 [11] |
Classic Stage Company | E. 13th St. (No. 136) | 199 |
Daryl Roth Theatre | E. 15th St. (No. 101) | 299 |
The Duke on 42nd Street | W. 42nd St. (No. 229) | 199 |
Gramercy Arts Theatre | E. 27th St. (No. 138) | 140 [12] |
The Gym at Judson | Thompson St. (No. 243) | 200 |
Irene Diamond Stage, Signature Theatre | W. 42nd St. (No. 480) | 294 |
Irish Repertory Theatre | W. 22nd St. (No. 132) | 148 [13] |
Jerome Robbins Theatre | W. 37th St. (No. 450) | 238 |
Jerry Orbach Theater | W. 50th St. (No. 210) | 199 |
John Cullum Theatre | W. 54th St. (No. 314) | 140 |
Laura Pels Theatre | W. 46th St. (No. 111) | 425 |
Linda Gross Theatre | W. 20th St. (No. 336) | 199 |
Lucille Lortel Theatre | Christopher St. (No. 121) | 299 |
LuEsther Theatre | Lafayette St. (No. 425) | 160 |
Lynn Redgrave Theatre | Bleecker St. (No. 45) | 199 |
Manhattan Movement & Arts Center | W. 60th St. (No. 248) | 180 |
Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater | W. 63rd St. (No. 5) | 145 [14] |
Martinson Theatre | Lafayette St. (No. 425) | 199 |
McGinn/Cazale Theatre | Broadway (No. 2162) | 108 |
Minetta Lane Theatre | Minetta Lane (No. 18) | 391 |
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater | W. 65th St. (No. 150) | 299 |
New Victory Theater | W. 42nd St. (No. 209) | 499 |
New World Stages, Stage 1 | W. 50th St. (No. 340) | 499 |
New World Stages, Stage 2 | W. 50th St. (No. 340) | 350 |
New World Stages, Stage 3 | W. 50th St. (No. 340) | 499 |
New World Stages, Stage 4 | W. 50th St. (No. 340) | 350 |
New World Stages, Stage 5 | W. 50th St. (No. 340) | 199 |
New York City Center Stage I | W. 55th St. (No. 131) | 300 |
New York City Center Stage II | W. 55th St. (No. 131) | 150 |
New York Theatre Workshop, Theatre 79 | E. 4th St. (No. 79) | 199 [15] |
Newman Theatre | Lafayette St. (No. 425) | 299 |
Newman Mills Theatre | W. 52nd St. (No. 511) | 245 [16] |
Orpheum Theatre | Second Ave. (No. 126) | 347 |
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Playwrights Horizons | W. 42nd St. (No. 416) | 128 |
Players Theatre | MacDougal St. (No. 115) | 248 |
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage | W. 42nd St. (No. 416) | 198 |
The Shed (Kenneth C. Griffin Theater) | 545 W. 30th St. | 500 [17] |
Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre | W. 42nd St. (No. 480) | 191 |
SoHo Playhouse | Vandam St. (No. 15) | 178 [18] |
St. Luke's Theatre | W. 46th St. (No. 308) | 178 |
Stage 42 | W. 42nd St. (No. 422) | 499 |
Susan & Ronald Frankel Theatre | W. 52nd St. (No. 511) | 100 [19] |
Theater 555 | W. 42nd St. (No. 555) | 130 [20] |
Theatre at St. Clement's Church | W. 46th St. (No. 423) | 151 |
Theatre at St. Jeans | E. 76th St. (No. 150) | 204 |
Theatre Three at Theatre Row | W. 42nd St. (No. 410) | 199 |
Tony Kiser Theatre | W. 43rd St. (No. 305) | 296 |
Triad Theatre | W. 72nd St. (No. 158) | 130 |
Vineyard Theatre | E. 15th St. (No. 108) | 132 |
Westside Theatre, Downstairs Theatre | W. 43rd St. (No. 407) | 249 |
Westside Theatre, Upstairs Theatre | W. 43rd St. (No. 407) | 270 |
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963).
Harold Smith Prince, commonly known as Hal Prince, was an American theatre director and producer known for his work in musical theatre.
Broadway theatre, or Broadway, is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters, each with 500 or more seats, in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world.
The Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and book and lyrics by Tom Jones. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the 1894 play The Romancers by Edmond Rostand, concerning two neighboring fathers who trick their children, Luisa and Matt, into falling in love by pretending to feud.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Michael Cerveris is an American actor, singer, and guitarist. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sunday in the Park with George, Road Show, and Passion. In 2004, Cerveris won the Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Assassins as John Wilkes Booth. In 2015, he won his second Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical for Fun Home as Bruce Bechdel.
Robert Cuccioli is an American actor and singer. He is best known for originating the lead dual title roles in the musical Jekyll & Hyde, for which he received a Tony Award nomination and won the Joseph Jefferson Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Fany Award for outstanding actor in a musical.
The Circle in the Square Theatre is a Broadway theater at 235 West 50th Street, within the basement of Paramount Plaza, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The current Broadway theater, completed in 1972, is the successor of an off-Broadway theater of the same name, co-founded around 1950 by a group that included Theodore Mann and José Quintero. The Broadway venue was designed by Allen Sayles; it originally contained 650 seats and uses a thrust stage that extends into the audience on three sides. The theater had 776 seats as of 2024.
Happy End is a three-act musical comedy by Kurt Weill, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Bertolt Brecht which first opened in Berlin at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on September 2, 1929. It closed after seven performances. In 1977 it premiered on Broadway, where it ran for 75 performances.
Second Stage Theater is a theater company founded in 1979 by Robyn Goodman and Carole Rothman and located in Manhattan, New York City. It produces both new plays and revivals of contemporary American plays by new playwrights and established writers. The company has an off-Broadway theater, the Tony Kiser Theater at 305 West 43rd Street on the corner of Eighth Avenue near the Theater District, and formerly had an off-off-Broadway theater, the McGinn–Cazale Theater on the Upper West Side. In April 2015, the company expanded into Broadway theater productions when it bought the Helen Hayes Theater.
The Lucille Lortel Theatre is an off-Broadway playhouse at 121 Christopher Street in Manhattan's West Village. It was built in 1926 as a 590-seat movie theater called the New Hudson, later known as Hudson Playhouse. The interior is largely unchanged to this day.
LoveMusik is a musical written by Alfred Uhry, using a selection of music by Kurt Weill. The story explores the romance and lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, based on Speak Low : The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by Lys Symonette and Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince had read Speak Low and suggested the idea for a musical to Uhry. Uhry and Prince worked on LoveMusik for four years to develop it into a stage work. The story spans over 25 years, from the first meeting of Lenya and Weill as struggling young artists, to their popularity in Europe and America, to Weill's death from a heart attack at age 50.
Gerard Alessandrini is an American playwright, parodist, actor and theatre director best known for creating the award-winning off-Broadway musical theatre parody revue Forbidden Broadway. He is the recipient of Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, an Obie Award, four Drama Desk Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and two Lucille Lortel Awards, as well as the Drama League Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
Alex Timbers is an American writer and director best known for his work on stage and television. He has received numerous accolades including two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Drama Desk Award, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Grammy Award. Timbers received the Drama League Founder's Award for Excellence in Directing and the Jerome Robbins Award for Directing.
The Theater Center is an off-Broadway theater on 50th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It has two stages.
Gordon Greenberg is an American stage director, a theater and television writer, and an Artistic Associate at The New Group.
Andy Sandberg is an American director, writer, actor, and producer. A 2005 graduate of Yale College, his Off-Broadway directing credits include Straight, Application Pending, Shida, Craving for Travel, Operation Epsilon, and The Last Smoker in America. He is also known as a producer of the Broadway (2009) and West End (2010) revivals of the musical Hair.
Manhattan Ensemble Theatre ("MET") was an award-winning, nonprofit, theatre company based in New York City from 1999 to 2007. The company was founded as an Off-Broadway, Equity repertory company in 1999 by writer-producer David Fishelson with the stated mission of creating theatrical adaptations of stories found in fiction, journalism, film, biography and memoir.
Lucas Steele is an American stage actor best known for his role as Anatole Kuragin in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.
Erik Liberman is an American actor, author, and director.
No matter what else you may have heard, the distinction is mainly one of contracts. There are so many theatres of so many different sizes served by so many different unions in New York that this three-tiered Broadway/Off-Broadway/Off-Off-Broadway system evolved to determine who would get paid what. ... Most "Broadway" theatres are not on Broadway, the street. A few theatres on Broadway, the street, are considered "Off-Broadway."