“If you look at the field-wide vulnerability, partnerships are a result of that,” said Eric Ting, one of Soho Rep’s three directors. “We look to each other for support and for strength.”
Soho Rep, established in 1975, is small: Its current annual budget is about $2.8 million, it has just five full-time employees and since 1991 it has been presenting most of its work in a 65-seat TriBeCa space, making it an Off Off Broadway theater. But the company, committed to what it calls “radical theater makers,” punches way above its weight. It was the first to stage Jackie Sibblies Drury’s “Fairview,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 2019, as well as Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s “Public Obscenities,” which was a Pulitzer finalist this year. The theater has regularly introduced New York audiences to work by important, and often provocative, playwrights, including Sarah Kane, Aleshea Harris, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Lucas Hnath.
Soho Rep plans to stage one final show at its current home, at 46 Walker Street, this fall, “Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,” which is a collaboration between the performance artist Alina Troyano and Jacobs-Jenkins, who won a Tony Award this year for “Appropriate.” The work is being directed by Ting, who shares leadership of Soho Rep with Cynthia Flowers and Caleb Hammons.
Soho Rep moved out of its current home once before, in 2016, citing permitting issues, and later returned, with help from city officials. But now, the theater’s leadership said, they really need to leave, citing rising rent (the theater’s previous landlord died during the Covid pandemic, and the building was sold to a corporate real estate holding company) and persistent expenses for building repairs. In addition, the space is not accessible and is so small that the company can’t generate enough revenue to sustain operations.
It found a willing partner in Playwrights Horizons, which last season shared its venues with another nonprofit, the Movement Theater Company.
Read More: Two More New York Theaters to Share Space
