The Old Places
The Guardian's Maxie bemoans the imminent loss of one old London theatre--Wilton's Music Hall (above)--and puts out the call for other reader faves with a possible wrecking ball in the future.
(I think the Wilton is that brittle old thing featured in the Mamet-directed "Catastrophe" for the "Beckett on Film" series, starring Pinter.)
So let me do the New York version! What are your favorite old theatre spaces in the city?
To get things started, I'll actually give a shout out to the Connelly Theatre, believe it or not. That dingy high school auditorium in alphabet city. Spacious, and certainly does have atmosphere. And you know you're not in The Hilton Center for the Performing Arts.
Chime in! Especially if the site is endangered.
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2 comments:
ABC No Rio's 'culture of opposition' goes back over twenty-six years to their founding. Their building on Rivington Street became an emblem of the artistic community’s struggle with the real estate problem in New York City.
We were the first to do theatre there when No Rio commissioned us in an art exchange with a Chicago gallery in 1982. Later we would produce the world premiere of the controversial Fassbinder Trash, The City and Death with them in1987. No Rio was the perfect performance space for presenting a play about how real estate speculation is destroying a city.
http://www.abcnorio.org/about/history/der_spiegel_87.html
http://ratconference.com/thieves/nation1.htm
The building at 156 Rivington was finally bought from the city last year for one dollar.
I had a great couple of days helping Voice & Vision scrap paint, scrub molding and clean out the basement when they turned the Connelly back into a theater, again (not since "The Cardinal Detoxes - there's one to look up!). What I love about this terrific theater is the 2-lane bowling alley in the basement - ya never know what you'll find when ya do a little cleanning. Marya Mazor and Voice & Vision deserve much credit.
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