The Magnetic Theatre launches ‘The Off-Off Broadway Project’

Press release:

Free! The Magnetic Theatre presents rehearsed readings of astonishing plays! Performances Saturdays at 10:30 PM at Magnetic 375 (375 Depot Street in the River Arts District).

Ever wonder what the sources are for any number of The Magnetic Theatre’s world premieres (and, for that matter, contemporary plays worldwide)? Wish for a chance to have a visceral experience of rarely produced but highly influential works of the American stage?

Join us for this first series in The Off-Off Broadway Project, celebrating the original Off-Off Broadway theatre, the Caffe Cino. June 24: “The Bed” by Robert Heide and “I Love You, Goodnight” by William M. Hoffman. July 22: “The Moon” by Robert Heide and “I Like It” by Michael Smith. August 26: “Icarus’s Mother” by Sam Shepard and “Medea of the Laundromat or The Stars May Understand” by H.M. Koutoukas. The series is curated by Magnetic Artistic Associate Katie Jones.

“Like our ‘Masters Series,’” Artistic Director Steven Samuels says, “The Off-Off Broadway Project is designed to give our audiences and artists a deeper appreciation of the work we do on original plays. Everything comes from somewhere, and we should all explore our roots. And what a treat this will be! Magnetic actors and directors coming to grips with some of the most challenging and delightful material in the repertoire!”

Admission free. No reservations required.

Further information: www.themagnetictheatre.org or (828) 239-9250.

About Caffe Cino (1958-1968): A tiny coffeehouse in New York City’s Greenwich Village was the first Off-Off Broadway theatre. Other coffeehouses presented comics and singers, but only the Cino offered plays, preexisting one-acts at first; then, starting in 1960, original plays. No admission was charged, no one was paid, and few presentations were reviewed. Owner Joe Cino’s motto was, “Do what you have to do.” This was a radically new situation in theatre. For the first time, plays were presented in places which made their living through other means—coffeehouses, bookstores, bars, churches—so there was no need to please the public, the press, the police, the priesthood, or the pundits. For the first time, there was a theatre world where playwrighting could be a free, individual, experimental, responsible art form. At the Caffe Cino in the 1960s, theatre entered the modern era, which the other arts had entered in Paris a century before. Drugs, opportunists, and licensing hassles gradually closed the Cino, but its work was original and influential. Before many years passed, there were (and are) hundreds of experimental, noncommercial theatres worldwide, all modeled directly or indirectly on the Cino. The Cino saw the early efforts of young performers like Al Pacino and Bernadette Peters, and tremendously important directors such as Tom O’Horgan and Marshall W. Mason. It numbered among its playwrights two who later won the Pulitzer Prize (Lanford Wilson and Sam Shepard), three who won or were nominated for the Tony (John Guare, Tom Eyen, and William M. Hoffman), numerous winners of many prizes such as Paul Foster and Jean-Claude van Itallie, and writers of plays which moved to Broadway and many other venues (e.g., Dames at Sea and Kennedy’s Children). There were also writers who never “made it” into the commercial theatre, but were popular and prestigious successes Off-Off Broadway, the only place where they could have been done: H.M. Koutoukas, Ronny Tavel, and Jeff Weiss, for instance. Among the freedoms of form and content won at the Cino was the right to do gay plays. Lanford Wilson, William M. Hoffman, Bob Heide, Claris Nelson, Haal Borske, George Birimisa, Diane DiPrima, and I, put brand-new characters onstage. The story of the Caffe Cino is a triumphant and tragic chapter in the history of world art. —Robert Patrick