Metropolitan Playhouse

Devoted to presenting plays that explore American culture and history, including seldom-produced, "lost" American plays and new plays about or derived from American history and literature, its best known revivals included three Eulalie Spence one-acts (The Starter, Hot Stuff, and The Hunch), Thunder Rock (play) and Shadow of Heroes by Robert Ardrey, On Strivers Row and Walk Hard (play) by Abram Hill, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Icebound and The Detour by Owen Davis, George L. Aiken's adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Jacob Gordin's The Jewish King Lear (in a translation by Ruth Gay), the world premiere of Neith Boyce's adaptation of H. G. Wells's The Sea Lady, The Faith Healer and The Great Divide by William Vaughn Moody, The Drunkard by W. H. Smith, Inheritors and the Pulitzer Prize winning Alison's House by co-founder of The Provincetown_Playhouse Susan Glaspell, The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill, The City by Clyde Fitch, Metamora by John Augustus Stone, Sun-Up by Lula Vollmer, and The New York Idea by Langdon Mitchell, and numerous early one-act plays by Eugene O'Neill.

The company has also staged three 'Living Newspapers' from the Federal Theater Project: Arthur Arent's Power in 2007, One-Third of a Nation in 2011, and Injunction Granted in 2015.

During the first 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in New York, the playhouse presented weekly readings online of American plays and short stories, as well as occasional concerts and improvised performance including the work of Zero Boy, the Area 9 Quartet, Amanda Selwyn Dance, all as a part of its Virtual Playhouse series.

Further on-line presentations included fund-raising readings of The Moon is Down (play) by John Steinbeck and Love Letters from the Cold War by Joseph Ryan.

In addition to historical American performance, Metropolitan Playhouse also dedicated itself to the exploration and celebration of the neighborhood in which it resided.