SoHo Playhouse
 SoHo Playhouse | |
 | |
| Address | 15 Vandam Street Manhattan, New York City United States |
|---|---|
| Type | Off-Broadway |
| Capacity | 178 |
| Website | |
| www | |
The SoHo Playhouse is an Off-Broadway theatre at 15 Vandam Street in the Hudson Square area of Manhattan.[1]
The theatre opened in 1962 as the Village South Theatre with the original production of Jean Erdman's musical play The Coach with the Six Insides which was based upon James Joyce's last novel Finnegans Wake. The following year Edward Albee used profits from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to establish the Playwrights' Unit at the Village South Theatre; an organization which provided a platform for untested new playwrights to premiere their works.[2] The theatre closed in 1970, with its last production being Michael Preston Barr and Dion McGregor's musical Who's Happy Now?. It did still house plays for various off-Broadway productions under the simple name of 15 Van Dam.[3] The theatre was home to the New York Academy of Theatrical Arts from 1970 until 1974.
It reopened in as the SoHo Playhouse in 1994 with a production of the play Grandma Sylvia's Funeral.
"Lighthouse: An Immersive Drinking Musical" debuted at the SoHo Playhouse in the summer of 2023 and set a record as the longest running production at the venue. The Irish-American musical comedy, created by Jacki Thrapp with additional material by Billy Recce, poured free shots to audience members during the show and even caught the eye of Drama Desk Judges. “What makes the show extraordinary? A woman named Sid Parker, who plays Kat Culley. [She has] my favorite type of acting, it does not seem like acting at all," said former President of the Drama Desk Peter Filichia.
The drinking show, which sold out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was never picked up for a Broadway run.
Thrapp released a compilation album in 2025 featuring the cast of the Edinburgh and Off-Broadway shows. "The reason why it's not one big studio soundtrack is very simple: I don't have $20,000," Thrapp shared in the intro of the album. "Especially for albums like this that probably only gross around $10 a year." Thrapp, an Emmy winner, has been very outspoken about the business of Broadway in her "Making A Musical" podcast.
In recent years, Soho Playhouse serves to incubate and produce intimate new works. In 2023, this included the psychological thriller, Job, featuring Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon;[4] Ed Byrne's comedic solo show titled Tragedy Plus Time,[5] Martin Dockery's absurdist thriller Inescapable and Florencia Iriondo's one-woman folk-pop musical, South.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ "About the Historic SoHo Playhouse". Retrieved March 15, 2016.
- ^ The Cambridge Companion to Edward Albee
- ^ "Greenwich Village: Birthplace of Modern American Drama part 4 in a series". 19 August 2016.
- ^ "Succession Stars Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon to Star in Job Off-Broadway - TheaterMania.com". 2023-08-07. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
- ^ Rabinowitz, Chloe. "Ed Byrne's TRAGEDY PLUS TIME To Make U.S. Premiere At Soho Playhouse". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
- ^ Masseron, Meg (September 20, 2023). "New Musical South Begins Run at SoHo Playhouse September 20".
40°43′35″N 74°00′16″W / 40.726449°N 74.004359°W
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