The primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral history Project
Celebrating the visionaries who created New York's vibrant Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theater.
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Douglas Aibel
Director, Artistic Director, Producer, Casting Director, Vineyard Theatre
Interview #199
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"..There had to be something else: i.e. our own theatre…where we controlled everything, where we were artists, where we could do what we want, where we could have children."
Gerard Alessandrini
Director, Writer, Composer, Satirist, Producer, Forbidden Broadway
Interview #196
READ MORE >>"I didn’t really enjoy being a child because the other children weren’t interested in what I was interested in. No other kids were listening to recordings of Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto or Carmen like I was. I’d not only listen for the music, but I was fascinated by the plots. Even though I grew up with opera, I learned to love theater, specifically theater with stories. I really love musical plays… because they kind of come from opera – not only is the music great, but the drama is too. It’s the fabulous invalid, so I suppose it will always survive in some form or other. I love people who still do shows with stories that have a point. ‘Gee I never thought of life that way…that’s an interesting take on how to think, act and feel!’ I love when you get that in theater!"
Penny Arcade and Steve Zehentner
Penny Arcade - Performance Artist, Activist, Playwright, Producer, Director, Archivist - - - Steve Zehentner - Designer, Director, Video Producer, Archivist
Interview #130
READ MORE >>"The answer is in the work. That’s kind of become our mantra."
Craig Belknap (a.k.a. Allen R)
Actor, Director, Founder Direct Theatre, Inc.
Interview #193
READ MORE >>"I’m somebody who treasures writers, that’s what it’s all about to me – it’s the words. And supporting those words in every way I can possibly do….The importance of Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway is that without them there would be nowhere to start, nowhere out of school to do your work. They are as important as the regional theaters for the same reason."
"I have a great hope that in the future, plays will cater to a bigger and younger audience that, at the moment, does not go to the theater… If we do this then we might stand a chance of keeping Off-Broadway alive. My wish is that we do plays of ‘passion’ and not plays of ‘opinion.’"
"The most important thing is the cultural background of New York because you are here, you are one of them."
Joe John Battista
Director, Artistic Director, Photographer, Musician, Founder, Screaming Mimes Theater Company
Interview #184
READ MORE >>"Off-Off-Broadway is a staple…Off-Off-Broadway is a birthing place, like the universe, for the greatest shows…it’s a birthing place, and you’re not going to be able to do that in a theater that costs a million dollars to rent, or 500,000, or 100,000…you need to birth it in these little nurseries, little nurseries of talent and creativity…Off-Off-Broadway is the engine for everything."
"I never was terribly interested in money, which turned out to be, of course, doing what I do, a godsend…At Circle Rep, we built the set, and then you just saw after the set was built...how many seats you could fit in the space…I came to New York in a huge recession, but of course that meant that everything was accessible."
Tanya Berezin
Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Circle Repertory Company, Actress
Interview #34
READ MORE >>"I was learning at that time in my life how wonderful it is that everybody is so different."
"I like doing things that have a fluidity to them… I’m a little too quirky for straight-ahead Broadway stuff."
"People always say ‘What is producing? What is producing?’ I don’t know what that is. For me, it is the intelligent application of one’s own taste."
Doris Blum (Gorelick)
Stage Manager, Producer Production Associate to Robert Whitehead
Interview #152
READ MORE >>"I stayed there for 33 years… in charge of the Junior School [Neighborhood Playhouse] … I was working concurrently with Robert Whitehead, it was a six day week for me. I enjoyed being with the kids on Saturday. It gave you a perspective after being with egotistical adults all week."
"Sometimes I think to this day that nothing’s changed; I’m still directing like I did when I was 15… I think there are certain plays that playwrights write that transcend human experience."
Gigi Gibson Bolt
Actor; Director, Theatre Program, New York State Council on the Arts; Director, Theatre and Musical, National Endowment for the Arts (Washington, DC); Interim Executive Director, Theatre Communications Group, NYC; Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia University School of the Arts
Interview #181
READ MORE >>"I’m glad I’m in this constant contact with a new generation. Because, if at any point I feel I can’t see my way through, I think they can. They sense all kinds of possibilities. They’re eager and unafraid"
Lee Breuer (and Maude Mitchell)
Playwright, Director, Producer, Co-Founder Mabou Mines
Interview #145
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"I wanted to do one of those (Sam) Shepard ladies…I felt it was going back to my roots – arriving here in New York in 1973. He was so much a part of the Zeitgeist that one came into in ‘Downtown’ theater at the time…it felt like a circle – like ‘yes, I want to do this!’"
"When you stick around a long time, you pick up a lot of things from a lot of different people so every experience that I’ve had in the theatre has contributed to me in some ways as an artist, as a literary manager, as a teacher. Even little ones."
"I was living in New York and everyone was asking me to become an American citizen and I wouldn’t think of it…because I didn’t want to lose my Cuban citizenship…Fidel suddenly made a speech saying he had always been a Marxist/Leninist…I became an American Citizen the following day."
"I guess it’s like a DNA. Hard to describe, identify, but I feel it’s there. I think it’s there in all artists. And maybe the art of living is the richest art form."
"People say...it’s so marvelous that you didn’t give up. It didn’t occur to me… There’s always going to be a young person who has a dream and a lot of ambition and some talented friends. They’ll figure it out."
"Working with a company you get to create from scratch, it’s your theatre piece…’Get paid?’ – we chipped in for the rental of the space."
"The theatre that's 'always dying' never does...all you have to do is show up and you can make something."
"We were doing work I thought dispelled stereotypes for Asian American actors, and allowed us to do world classics unlimited by race or ethnicity."
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"My motivation was not to perform, but to create. Theatre reflects the moment."
Casey Childs
Director, Producer, Actor, Founder, Executive Director Primary Stages
Interview #164
READ MORE >>"The Oral History Project was a way of finding permanency in a business that’s completely ephemeral. Theater dissolves before your eyes when it’s over. You can read about it, read the reviews, look at pictures, and stuff, but none of that really comes close to having seen the production or even having someone explain the production to you and how they got to the production. This was to find permanency "
"And I took the 10-hour bus ride to New York. And all I had was one pair of dance pants, a unitard, maybe one leotard, a pair of boots, and that was it."
"I feel theatre today has to be more active, and that’s why movement is very much a part of my theatre."
"It was all about discovering things. During the course you discover stuff about yourself as well."
"I really feel you’re no better than the people you work with."
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"When we were eighteen we sat down and made a list of qualities we thought a musical should have…"
"I’m always concerned about how much people don’t know… about the history of the theatre."
"The life of the theatre is Off-Broadway."
"““When I started choreographing, I turned around and put the mirror behind me – and saw the world. It was such a revelation."
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"Theatre is quite remarkable. Those of us who managed to survive it were quite fortunate."
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"‘I'd always thought...I sorta wound up Off-Broadway not intentionally. As a Manager I thought it'd be Broadway, that I'd do more Broadway. But because of the other things I spoke about, Broadway Cares and National Dance Institute, there was a distraction that was important to my soul."
"When people got into the Cino, it was the same for everybody…we discovered this world that no one knew existed and it was huge. It was like discovering a planet. It was really that big and that different."
"’I Love Lucy’ was started in 1952…when I was in second grade. I suddenly announced… that I wanted to write a play, and what I wrote was very short… it was two pages and it was taking the characters of ‘I Love Lucy."