Brooklyn's Hidden Theater District

The most famous theater district in the country is of course the one in Times Square, with its 40 Broadway houses and its streets busy with billboards promoting the latest shows – a place that gets special attention this time of year because of the Tony Awards, broadcast nationally on June 12th.

There is, though, a theater district in New York that is so little-known it could be called hidden.   There are no billboards in this hidden theater district, but there is a table full of postcards, promoting theater companies with lower budgets but in some cases even higher reputations. These include such oft-praised, cutting-edge companies as  Elevator Repair Service, best known for  Gatz, as well as  The Civilians  (one of whose most active associate artists, Michael Friedman, was the co-creator of  “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson.”)

South Oxford Space, at 138 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene, serves as home to some 20 theater companies, and has done so since the Alliance of Resident Theatres, or A.R.T./New York, bought the building in the year 2000 to provide affordable office space for its members.

“At the time, it was an up-and-coming neighborhood; I’d say it’s up and come now,” says Stephanie Bok, the manager of South Oxford Space. The building had been constructed in 1930 for the Visiting Nurse Association, its sole tenant for 70 years. It now provides nursing of a different sort.

 “Our company was based out of my apartment initially and we were thrilled to find affordable space so that we could open a real office,” says Liz Jones, the executive director of Page 73 Productions, which since 1997 has produced new work by early-career playwrights.

 “It’s very exciting to be in this particular area to do our work,” says Aaron Ingram, the founder of Act Now Foundation, which supports theater and film about the African Diaspora.

Yes, South Oxford Space is primarily made up of offices. But about a quarter of the tenants present shows there as well, some regularly. The dance troupe Urban Bushwomen holds a monthly “Being Bushified” event. On June 18, it is helping to put on the 11th annual Fort Greene Juneteenth Arts Festival at nearby Cuyler Gore Park. (Juneteenth is a long-time holiday that celebrates the ending of American slavery.)  

Two rehearsal studios, a gallery space, and a wood-paneled room called The Great Room are all available for rent in the building. The Great Room can seat up to 74 people and is often booked for readings and performances of various stripes, and not just by resident companies. Bok makes a point of saying it’s not really a theater. “There’s no wing space, it doesn’t have raked seating, there are no theatrical lights.”  But for some, The Great Room really is great.  

“I love the room,” says Katie Workum, a dancer who has taken her daughter to classes offered in the room, uses it as a rehearsal space, and will be presenting her dance piece, “We have been doing this forever,” in The Great Room next Wednesday.  “I love all the different elements of the room and I have incorporated them into my dance.  It is also the right size as well for my performance, intimate in scale.  I also like the idea of working in my neighborhood,” she said.   

This is not as easy as some might expect. Even before there was talk of a BAM Cultural District, which at the moment consists largely of plans and promises, people were calling this area a cultural district.  It would be difficult to find a tenant in South Oxford Space who thinks otherwise – and just as difficult to find anyone who thinks it has reached anywhere near its potential.

“I think the area is a cultural district in the fact that there are many artists living and working here,” says Jones of Page 73. “But for it to become a really mature cultural district it will need to develop a wider range of performance spaces, so that the area can be seen as a destination for more than just BAM. The new Irondale Center helps with this, but it is still costly to rent and there is a need for more spaces for smaller groups to use.”

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Tenants at South Oxford Space

 (with descriptions provided by the companies):

ActNow Foundation - a theatre and film company which focuses on the minority experience in this country. By providing a home for ethnically and racially diverse artists, they take audiences on a journey that enriches their cultural background.

American Opera Projects - produces contemporary American operas and commissions new work.

American Theatre of Harlem - provides affordable, quality theatre and workshops for actors of all levels. Brings the spirit of Harlem to Brooklyn.

Caribbean Cultural Theatre - produces work reflective of the diverse cultures of the Caribbean and presents a balanced reality of the Caribbean-American experience.

 The Civilians - creates investigative theatre, developing new works based on contemporary and political topics. Artists pursue inquiries using interviews, community residencies and research creating provocative theatrical events based on a direct engagement with real life.

Elders Share the Arts - dedicated to conducting and fostering the development of programs that honor and actively draw on the life experience of older adults and encourage their creative expression.

Elevator Repair Service Theater - formed in 1991, a critically acclaimed ensemble creating original performance pieces based on and around found texts, found objects, literature and history.

Encompass New Opera Theatre - produces new music theatre pieces and contemporary operas.

Lone Wolf Tribe - a puppet theatre ensemble composed of Kevin Augustine and his tribe of exquisitely grotesque puppets.  Productions are emotional, visual, brutal, and poetic - touching the heart as well as breaking it sometimes.

New York City Players - creates original work about people, relationships and above all, feeling. By rigorously stripping away the habitual identities that encumber work, they pursue the power of language, of story, of image and what happens when people gather in a room.

New York Deaf Theatre, Ltd. - established in 1979 to create opportunities for the production of plays in American Sign Language for all audiences.

Nia Theatrical Production Company - produces new works by emerging artists and provides arts in education programs to the educational community.

Page 73 Productions - develops and produces the works of early-career playwrights who have shown professional commitment to the theatre but who have received neither wide public recognition nor substantial production opportunities.

Ripe Time - develops and produces ensemble-based performances that navigate the terrain between dance and theatre, word and image. Work ranges from original text collaborations, to adaptations from non-theatrical sources to re-inventions of classic texts.

Shadow Box Theatre - a children’s company that uses traditional Chinese shadow puppets to tell folk tales from many cultures or topic driven work such as The Earth and Me which considers environmental issues.

Target Margin Theater - an Obie-award winning experimental company that reinterprets the classics.

Trilok Fusion Arts - a multi-disciplined company providing a forum for artists around the world to collaborate and create new and unique art with a focus on culture and tradition.

Urban Bush Women - an ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change, it synthesizes contemporary dance, music and text with the history, culture and spiritual traditions of African-Americans and the African diaspora.

White Bird Productions - works with playwrights, composers and performers to develop and produce theatre that embraces issues of the environment and community.  The Creative Theatrics program offers theatre projects for pre-K through teens.

Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company - an Obie-award winning company creating and presenting new, experimental performances that are written and directed by Young Jean Lee in collaboration with company members from diverse backgrounds.