The Soho Repertory Theatre, also known as Soho Rep[1], is an Off-Broadway theater company with a 73-seat located at 46 Walker Street in the TriBeCa district of Manhattan, New York City. Since 2000, the company has been awarded thirteen Obie Awards, seven Drama Desk Award nominations, an Oppenheimer Award, the Kesselring Prize, and The New York Times Outstanding Playwrighting Award
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The Soho Repertory Theatre was founded in July 1975 by Jerry Engelbach, a native New Yorker, and Marlene Swartz, originally from Dallas, Texas. As co-artistic directors they produced over a hundred plays until Engelbach left in 1989. Swartz then partnered with English director Julian Webber, until she herself left several years later. Swartz is credited as co-director of the long-running Blue Man Group show, which received an early experimental performance at Soho Rep. Early on, Soho Rep’s audience saw performances by many rising young actors, including Kevin Spacey, Kathleen Turner, Jonathan Frakes, Ed O'Neill, David Strathairn, and Karen Young, as well as scores of later successful lighting designers, set designers, and costume designers.
Soho Rep’s founding mission was to present relatively rare classical plays. After several years producing works from Shakespeare to Shaw, the theater expanded its mission to include rarely seen modern plays and completely new works. Among Soho Rep’s New York premieres were the stage version of Rod Serling’s television play Requiem for a Heavyweight, J.P. Donleavy’s Fairy Tales of New York, and Preston Sturges’s A Cup of Coffee, the stage play on which he based his film Christmas is July. Among the many new works presented were plays by Americans Len Jenkin and Mac Wellman, and Britons Nicholas Wright, David Lan, and Barrie Keefe. In 1998 Daniel Aukin became Artistic Director and produced new work by artists including Adam Bock, Young Jean Lee, Richard Maxwell, Melissa James Gibson, Quincy Long, The Flying Machine and Maria Irene Fornes.
In 2006 Sarah Benson became the fourth Artistic Director of the company. She directed the New York premiere of Sarah Kane's "Blasted" to critical acclaim in fall 2008, and has produced work by other writers and groups including John Jesurun, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Dan LeFranc.
In 2005, it was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. [2] [3]
Actors Kathleen Turner, Ed O'Neill, and Kevin Spacey made their professional debuts at Soho Rep, and the long list of illustrious Soho Rep acting alumni includes Steve Buscemi, Jonathan Frakes, Allison Janney, Steve Mellor, Tim Blake Nelson (now on the board), Will Patton, Bill Sadler, John Seitz, Margaret Whitton and Frank Wood. Many Mainstage productions have emerged from their new play development and commissioning programs, often resulting in artistically lauded productions. .
Soho Rep is a leading hub for innovative contemporary theater in New York City. It is dedicated to artistic excellence by supporting distinctive, diverse and pioneering theater. It empowers artists to make their boldest work and invites audiences to share in that intimate and transformative live experience. Soho Rep creates a dynamic context for both artists and audiences that promotes and sustains conversation in the field—and the cultural fabric of the city.
Soho Rep’s first home was in the SoHo section of Manhattan, on the ground floor of a loft building at 19 Mercer Street. After the building was sold and the company forced to move, it received a grant from the office of then Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein (later president of the New York City Council) to renovate the auditorium of the partly abandoned old Bellevue Hospital building on East 29th Street.
Soho Rep’s next home was Greenwich House, an historic settlement building on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village. Having to share the theater space at Greenwich House with other performance events eventually proved confining, and after several seasons Soho Rep, under Marlene Swartz and Julian Webber, moved to its present home at 46 Walker Street where it has been since 1991.
Historically, Soho Rep was actually located in SoHo for only its first few years (Bellevue Hospital is in Kips Bay, Greenwich House is in the Village, and Walker Street is below SoHo, in TriBeCa); accordingly, the new name is more commonly seen as "Soho"[1] (lowercase h). It has also performed at outside venues, among them the Queens Playhouse in the Park and Saint Bartholomew’s Church.
Although Soho Rep is known as a preeminent place where new American plays make their debuts, since the departure of Engelbach and Swartz the subsequent artistic directors have all been English: Julian Webber, Daniel Aukin, and current Artistic Director Sarah Benson.