Theater for the New City
Crystal Field and George Bartenieff founded Theater for the New City in 1971 with Theo Barnes and Lawrence Kornfeld, who was the Resident Director of Judson Poets Theatre, where the four had met.
Feeling that Judson Poets Theatre had peaked,[1] they decided to form a theater of their own for poetic work that would also encompass a community ideal.
Its initial two seasons included plays by Richard Foreman, Charles Ludlam, Miguel Piñero and Jean-Claude van Itallie.
Mabou Mines found a home at Theater for the New City as did playwrights such as Romulus Linney, Harvey Fierstein, H. M. Koutoukas, Arthur Sainer, Howard Zinn, and Maria Irene Fornes.
Notable productions in the late 1970s and 1980s include the American premiere of two of Heiner Muller’s plays, Hamletmachine [3] in 1984 and Quartett [4] in 1985; and Buried Child [5] by Sam Shepard in 1978.
The Theater for the New City production of Buried Child moved off-Broadway to the Theatre de Lys and in 1979, and became the first off-off-Broadway play to win the Pulitzer Prize.
[8] With the help of Bess Myerson, Ruth Messinger and David Dinkins, the theater was able to purchase an underutilized 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) former WPA building one block east at 155 First Avenue in 1986.
Refusing to close doors during renovation, TNC threw up two interim theater spaces, which like its predecessors in the 2nd Avenue building, were named after off-off-Broadway founders Joe Cino and Charles Stanley.
Responding to the homeless problem of the late 1980s and government cutbacks in the arts, TNC created an after school Arts-in-Education program for shelter children in 1990.
TNC continues to produce 30-40 new plays per year, along with its Annual Summer Street Theater, the Annual Village Halloween Costume Ball and the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, which was created in 1996 to celebrate the ethnic and artistic diversity of TNC's Lower East Side neighborhood.
Other notable playwrights to have their work presented at TNC include Bina Sharif, Barbara Kahn, Laurence Holder, Raymond J. Barry, Trav S.D.
TNC continues to be a haven for Emerging playwrights, and in 2006, a play reading series, New City, New Blood, was created in order to further showcase new works.
TNC donated a portion of the proceeds raised from this Benefit to Southern Rep, a theater company in New Orleans whose space was destroyed in the floods resulting from Hurricane Katrina.
The 2008 benefit honored playwright Edward Albee and included performances by Elaine Stritch, Marian Seldes, Basil Twist and Bill Irwin.
Through its Resident Theater Program, TNC produces 20-30 new American plays per year, providing a forum for both new and mid-career writers to experiment with their work and develop as artists.
The newest division of the Resident Theater Program, New City, New Blood, is a reading series for worthy plays in earlier stages of development.
TNC's Arts in Education program was developed specifically to foster communication and self-esteem in at-risk and limited English proficient students.
After moving into the space in September 1986. it created two interim theaters to continue production while raising the $2 million needed for renovation funds.
The Cino Theater is slated for a full renovation in the near future, which will include leveling of the floor, fully-moveable seating and a balcony performance area.
[16] The Faustian deal was somewhat sweetened by giving TNC an extension on their mortgage and allowing the theater to have one seat on the condo board.
Being vastly taller than the 6-story tenement buildings prevalent in the Lower East Side, the condo tower was seen as a threat to the character of the neighborhood and construction in 2000 occurred amidst great protest.
