Soho Repertory Theatre

FormationJune 1, 1975 (1975-06-01)
TypeTheatre group
PurposeAvant-garde theatre[1]
Location
  • 46 Walker Street, New York, NY 10013
Membership
--Directors--
Cynthia Flowers
Caleb Hammons
Eric Ting[2]
Websitesohorep.org

The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,[3] is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers.[1][4][5][6] The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan.[7] The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize.[8] A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."[9][10][11]

Notable artists who have recently created work at the theater, often early in their careers, include: David Adjmi, César Alvarez, Annie Baker, Alice Birch, Christopher Chen, Jackie Sibblies Drury, debbie tucker green, Aleshea Harris, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Daniel Alexander Jones, Young Jean Lee, Richard Maxwell, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Anne Washburn.

The New York Times has described it as a "safer home for dangerous plays".[12] Critics note the “jaw dropping premieres” and “big plays in a small room”[13] as defining features of the theater’s programming. New Yorker theatre critic Hilton Als wrote about current director Sarah Benson:

Under her directorship I have never seen a boring production—a very rare thing, indeed. Her deeply individual sensibility is not compromised by needs other than those of the work at hand, and it’s that freedom, structured around shows that I may not agree with but always learn from, that distinguishes the SoHo Rep... Benson has imbued each work with a tough, unsentimental core; she’s also made the plays into distinct visual works that help us see the words.

— Hilton Als in The New Yorker[14]

In 2019 the company adopted a shared leadership model.[15] The three Directors of the theater of the company Sarah Benson, Cynthia Flowers, and Meropi Peponides led the theater until Benson and Peponides' departure in 2023.

In 2023, Caleb Hammons and Eric Ting joined Cynthia Flowers as co-directors of the theater.[2]

The company has an annual budget of around $2 million and employs a full-time staff of seven. In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company put eight artists on salary for the 2020-21 season through the creation of a job creation program titled Project Number One referencing Federal Project Number One.[16][17]

  1. ^ a b [1] Lefkowitz, David. Simonson, Robert. "Flying Distress Doesn't Hinder Flying Machine's Distress at Soho Rep". Playbill. September 30, 2001
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference 2023dir was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ The official website's "About" page now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from the New York Times
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsObieWanKuhnowB2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsVilcek42 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ [2] Sparks, Cator. "An Evening With Soho Rep. The Broadway of the Avant Garde." HuffPost. May 4, 2011
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsTT152 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ The Pulitzer Prizes, The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama, Retrieved February 23, 2021
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference tws41255 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsBCF411 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsHWR445 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsNYT4844 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Press & Awards". sohorep.org. Archived from the original on February 9, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2023.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsNewYorker14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "Sharing the Load". Howl Round. March 2, 2021.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference twsVulture513 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Playbill magazine, Dan Meyer, September 24, 2020, Becca Blackwell, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Jillian Walker, More Hired to Create New Works at SoHo Rep, Retrieved February 23, 2021