Joe Cino
In 1958, Cino retired from dancing and rented a storefront at 31 Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village to open a coffeehouse where his friends could socialize.
He did not intend Caffe Cino to become a theatre, and instead visualized a café where he could host folk music concerts, poetry readings, and art exhibits.
Compared to painting and writing, theatre is an expensive art form that requires a space and collaborators, and is subject to the scrutiny of church, state, and the press.
Dozens of theaters based on the Cino model began to appear in places making their living other ways: cafes, bars, art galleries, and churches.
One novelist wrote: "Off-Off-Broadway: The first place in human history where theatre is treated as the equal of the other arts, as a thing responsible and important above popularity ratings, outside monetary concerns, beyond academic and legal restrictions: The first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism."
The limited space dictated a need for small casts and minimal sets, usually built from scraps Cino found in the streets.
Cino decorated the café with fairy lights, mobiles, glitter, and Chinese lanterns, and covered the walls with memorabilia and personal effects.
Many of the young playwrights who premiered their works at Cino's venue, including Doric Wilson (who would later found TOSOS, the first professional gay theatre), William M. Hoffman (who later wrote As Is), Robert Patrick (Kennedy's Children), John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation), Tom Eyen (Dreamgirls), Sam Shepard (True West), Robert Heide (The Bed, filmed by Andy Warhol), Paul Foster (Tom Paine), Jean-Claude van Itallie (America Hurrah), and Lanford Wilson (Burn This); directors Tom O'Horgan (Hair) and Marshall W. Mason (Talley's Folly); and actors such as Al Pacino and Bernadette Peters went on to significant commercial and critical success.
Alan Lysander James presented several programs of Oscar Wilde material at the Cino from 1962 through 1965, while director Andy Milligan staged a number of homoerotic productions, including Jean Genet's The Maids and Deathwatch and a dramatization of Tennessee Williams' short story One Arm, which was the first production at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.
Robert Patrick's The Haunted Host, William M. Hoffman's Good Night, I Love You, Bob Heide's The Bed, and Haal Borske's The Brown Crown all dealt with gay themes.
Ruth Landshoff York, H.M. Koutoukas, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Jeffrey Weiss, Soren Agenoux, and George Birimisa presented plays with gay content at Cino, which would likely have been unacceptable outside of off-off-Broadway at that time.
That production, along with other long runs and revivals of past hits (especially those by Wilson, Eyen, and Heide) and the availability of better facilities in some of the new off-off-Broadway theaters, drove some playwrights away from the Cino.
After Cino's death, police issued summonses so frequently that when a policeman appeared on the block, actors were ready at a signal from the doorman to leap offstage and sit, often in fantastic costumes, at tables with patrons.
They awarded a shared Obie to Joe Cino and Ellen Stewart, founder of La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, in 1965.
The mainstream attitude is summarized in this anecdote: George Haimsohn, librettist and lyricist for Dames at Sea and Psychedelic Follies, said the reason the Caffe Cino was omitted from publicity when the musical moved was because, "We don't want to be associated with drugs and homosexuality."
On April 28, 2008, the office of the President of the Borough of Manhattan issued a proclamation honoring Joe Cino's achievement in founding Off-Off Broadway which "altered the world's conception of drama's possibilities forever.
"[2] The proclamation was read by John Guare at the unveiling of a bronze plaque depicting Cino at his espresso machine affixed to the wall at 31 Cornelia Street.
Although friends tried to keep Caffe Cino open, it closed the following year in 1968, succumbing to the strict cabaret laws being enforced by the young councilman Ed Koch.
