Culture Chronicle
Small Theaters With Big Ideas
The Wall Street Journal - June 11, 2010
By Ellen Gamerman

Architect Toshiko Mori was faced with a challenge. She had to create a dark theater in a bright space with sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. Her proposal: Build lightweight, moveable walls that could either block or use the natural light, depending on the show. The idea turned out to be a winner.

The Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, an advocacy organization for 300 not-for-profit theaters in the city, announced this week that it had chosen Ms. Mori from 14 architects in a competition to design two 99-seat theaters. A.R.T./New York has received $14.4 million from the city and state over the last two years for the capital project from the Bloomberg administration, the New York City Council, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and the state assembly, according to the organization's executive director, Ginny Louloudes.

The two theaters will reside inside a pricy new Hell's Kitchen high-rise rental and condominium complex, stretching from 51st Street to 53rd Street, called Archstone Clinton. They are expected to open in 2013 and will be rented at subsidized rates to smaller theater companies. The city, which owned the property originally, required that the new complex provide space for not-for-profit arts organizations after a local theater was displaced to make way for the residential complex, owned by the Dermot Company.

Eventually, the complex will house five theaters run by three different companies. Joining A.R.T./New York there is the 52ND Street Project, which moved in earlier this year and began performances in its theater space. The MCC Theater, now using the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street, plans to create a permanent home there as well, according to a person familiar with the project.

The two A.R.T./New York theaters will experiment with sound as well as light. Since there will also be public spaces and rehearsal rooms on the same floors as the new theaters, Ms. Mori says she's considering creating room partitions made from light, spongy materials that absorb sound. For the full article, click here