Theatre News and Reviews

Writing about Off-Broadway in The Best Plays of 1965-1966, the late Otis L. Guernsey praised its influence yet fretted over “66 shows as compared to 75 a year ago.” A decade later, he noted how the Off-Broadway scene of the ’60s had yielded, by the ’70s, “a mini-Broadway.” Yet today, overall productions are fewer, commercial productions are fewer still, and suddenly a growing list of venues faces elimination.

The latest evidence: news that City Hall, as part of the Hudson Yards development plan okayed by the City Council, has sold the southern stretch of West 42nd Street between Dyer and Tenth avenues to Stephen Ross, chairman and CEO of the Related Companies, one of the city’s biggest real estate developers, and TRM Associates, a group of partners. As a result, several buildings, including the Douglas Fairbanks and John Houseman theatres and a six-story structure housing black boxes and theatre-related offices at 432 West 42nd St., may be demolished in favor of a 60-story condominium and the long-awaited extension of the No. 7 subway line.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 27th, 2005 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Theatre, Off Broadway. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.