Off-Off Broadway
New York City off-off-Broadway theater productions are those performed in theaters that are smaller than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters. Off-off Broadway theaters typically have fewer than 100 seats. However, the term can also be used to refer to any performance in the New York City catchment area that employs unionized actors but who are not under a Broadway, Off-Broadway, or League of Resident Theaters contract. It is also often used to denote performances by non-union actors. Off-Off Broadway performances range from professional productions with established artists to small screenings by amateurs.
history
The Off-Off-Broadway movement began in 1958 in response to Off-Broadway and "a complete rejection of commercial theater." Among the first venues of what would later become known as Off-Off-Broadway were coffee houses in Greenwich Village , most notably Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street. This was led by the eccentric Joe Cino , who took a liking to the actors and playwrights and agreed to have them perform plays there without first reading the play or even knowing much about its content. These DIY prerequisites also led to creative reallocations of objects by playwrights and directors, who put together sets from materials collected on the street. Also essential to the rise of off-off Broadway were Ellen Stewart at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club and Al Carmines at the Judson Poets' Theater near the Judson Memorial Church . Other notable theaters included the Genesis Theater, the New York Theater Ensemble, The Old Reliable, The Dove Company, The Playwrights Workshop, and the Workshop of the Players Art (WPA).
An off-off-Broadway performance with actors from the Actors Equity Association is called an equity showcase performance; not all off-off-Broadway performances are equity showcases . The union has strict rules for participation in such performances, which include price restrictions, number of performances and practice times. Professional actors often work in such productions; these make up the bulk of the work for actors in New York. There is a movement that wants the equity showcase rules to be overhauled as many find them unduly restrictive and detrimental to the development of New York theater.
As of 1964, off-off-Broadway performances have qualified for the Obie Awards , and since 1974 the Drama Desk Awards have evaluated off-off-Broadway performances using the same criteria as Broadway and off-Broadway performances.
The term indie theater or independent theater ( independent theater ), coined by playwright Kirk Bromley is used by many as a substitute for the term Off-Off-Broadway, including from groups such as the League of Independent Theater nytheatre.com and the website.
Since 2005, La Mama Coffeehouse Chronicles have been performing, which include both personal oral accounts from artists of the time and conversations with artists today who continue to work in the same daring fashion. As is traditionally customary, a basket is given around to pay.
literature
- Bottoms, Stephen J: Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2004
- Curley, Mallory: Tales of Off Off Broadway, Randy Press, 2003
- Viagas, Robert: The Back Stage Guide to Broadway, New York, Back Stage, 2004
- Malewitz, Raymond: The Practice of Misuse, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2014
Web links
- New York Innovative Theater Award , an awards and advocacy group for independent theater
- NY theater , a review site specializing in indie theater
- League of Independent Theater
- Off off online.
Individual evidence
- ^ Off-Off-Broadway, Way Back When . Retrieved December 13, 2007.
- ↑ Viagas, Robert: The Back Stage Guide to Broadway, New York, Back Stage, 2004, p 72: Michael Smith appoints Jerry Tallmer as the author of the term in the 1960th
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from November 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Malewitz, R. (2014) The Practice of Misuse: Rugged Consumerism in Contemporary American Culture - ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ New York Magazine. dated March 2, 1970, ISSN 0028-7369 , Volume 3, No. 9, p. 13 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=KEtq3P1Vf8oC&dat=19690821&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
- ↑ Stephen J. Bottoms: Playing Underground. University of Michigan Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-472-11400-9 , p. 292 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ http://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/thepatri.pdf
- ↑ http://pointlessplea.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/robert-patrick-by-wendell-stone/
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from April 22, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ "Breaking the Code?" . Village Voice . p. 1.
- ^ Cracking the Code. New York equity showcase code renewed ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Obies: About , accessed March 16, 2015
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Bromley, Kirk: Interview ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in Nyte small press
- ↑ http://lamama.org/programs/coffeehouse-chronicles/
