Off-off-Broadway

[4] Among the first venues for what would soon be called "off-off-Broadway" theatre were coffeehouses in Greenwich Village, particularly the Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, operated by the eccentric Joe Cino, who early on took a liking to actors and playwrights and agreed to let them stage plays there without bothering to read the plays first, or to even find out much about the content.

This DIY aesthetic also led to creative acts of object repurposing by playwrights and directors, who cobbled together sets from materials scavenged from local streets.

Brooks McNamara wrote that over time, off-off-Broadway work lost some of its experimental spirit, instead beginning to imitate the "characteristics of off-Broadway, which had gradually moved toward reshaping itself in the image of Broadway, though often producing works that were unsuitable for commercial theatre.

Equity maintains union rules about working in such productions, including restrictions on price of tickets, the length of the run, and rehearsal times.

There has been an ongoing movement to revise the Equity Showcase Code, which many in the community find overly restrictive and detrimental to the creation of New York theatre.