First Classical Theater Built in New York City Since Four Decades Ago

Theatre for a New Audience, founded by Jeffrey Horowitz in 1979, has broken ground on its first home!

When First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and other officials pick up their ceremonial shovels to commemorate the ground-breaking for Theatre for a New Audience's new home, they will be marking the spot on which will be built New York City's first new stage designed expressly for Shakespeare and classic drama since the completion of the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center in 1965 - nearly half a century ago.

The new theatre is slated to open in the spring of 2013. Jeffrey Horowitz invited Julie Taymor to direct the official 2013 inaugural production. She has accepted and plans to do this. They are now exploring ideas. Taymor directed four plays for Theatre for a New Audience between 1996 and 2000; her production of Carlo Gozzi's The Green Bird for the Theatre moved to Broadway in 2000.

This is no small feat. The Theatre's new home is the centerpiece of a $62.5 Million Capital Campaign, which includes a $10 Million endowment to support programs and operations within the new facility. The theatre, designed by world-renowned architect Hugh Hardy and his team at H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, includes a 299-seat, flexible theatre uniquely designed for the performance of Shakespeare and classic drama. Also in the new building will be Studio spaces of 50 and up to 99 seats for performance, rehearsal and events; a book kiosk, a lobby café and theatrical support spaces. It will be a sustainable, "green" theatre, one of only a handful in the world. The building is designed to achieve a minimum of LEED Silver certification for new construction (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, criteria developed by the U.S. Green Building Council).

Brooklyn is getting one of the most respected classical theatre companies in the world.

Last season was one of Theatre for a New Audience's most successful, with four acclaimed, sold-out productions: Notes from Underground, Cymbeline, Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice. Merchant, which starred F. Murray Abraham as Shylock, was the Theatre's first production to have a national tour and received wide acclaim across the country.

This award-winning theatre is the first American theatre to be invited by the Royal Shakespeare Company to perform Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. It was invited in 2001 to bring Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, and again in 2007 to bring The Merchant of Venice, starring F. Murray Abraham and directed by Darko Tresnjak. Theatre for a New Audience also toured to Naples, Italy with Souls of Naples starring John Turturro.

The Theatre has the largest education program for Shakespeare and other classics in the New York City Public Schools, serving more than 2,000 students annually and more than 123,000 since inception. The Theatre is in classrooms in all five boroughs in some of the City's most under-served neighborhoods. In addition, approximately 60 middle and high school teachers receive training each year from Theatre for a New Audience. This summer, the Theatre will host a two-week Summer Institute for teachers who will travel from throughout the country to study Shakespeare with the Theatre's faculty and teaching artists. This program is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities

Theatre for a New Audience's new building will be its first home. For 32 years, Theatre for a New Audience has been renting or sharing space across Manhattan and Brooklyn. Located in the heart of Brooklyn's BAM Cultural District on Ashland Place between Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street, our new Hugh Hardy-designed theatre is steps from the BAM Peter Jay Sharp Building and Harvey Theater, as well as the Mark Morris Dance Center. The City of New York is developing a public Arts Plaza, designed by landscape architect Ken Smith, which will wrap around the front of the building and provide a welcoming spot for relaxation and recreation.

"Theatre for a New Audience will contribute to the continuing renaissance of Downtown Brooklyn and the cultural life of the City," said Mr. Horowitz, who founded Theatre for a New Audience more than three decades ago. "This theatre is a dream-come-true for us. When completed, we will not only reach new audiences in Brooklyn, but we will be close enough via public transit for our current audience to visit us with ease."

A dream, indeed. The Mainstage of the new theatre, named the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage (in recognition of a $5 Million gift from the SHS Foundation), is inspired by the Cottesloe Theatre of London's Royal National Theatre. The performance space combines an Elizabethan courtyard theatre with modern technology.

The 299-seat Mainstage is distinguished by its intimacy, its proportions designed to create connection and the ideal relationship between actor and audience - the seating is not on one long plane, as in most theatres; instead, it is a fully flexible space of intimate proportions, designed to create the ideal relationship between actor and audience. The seating and stage areas are flexible, allowing for proscenium, thrust, runway or stadium configurations.

The Mainstage is a full 35 feet tall, nearly twice the 19-foot height of standard Off-Broadway stages, allowing actors and scenic elements to fly in. The stage will also have a trapped floor, allowing entrances from below, an essential element of classical drama, most famously for the gravedigger's scene in Hamlet. In concert with Theatre for a New Audience's reverence for language, acoustic design has received special emphasis to assure absolute clarity of spoken text. This means that when a line calls for a whisper, it can be a whisper and will still be heard. Theatre for a New Audience's new home will be a playground for the imagination, a magnet for the most interesting artists, and unlike any other theatre in New York.

The new theatre includes a bold graphic and signage program by celebrated graphic artist Milton Glaser, the first graphic designer to ever be awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Theatre for a New Audience anticipates bringing a total of 25,000 new audience members to Downtown Brooklyn with significant economic impact on the neighborhood. A recent economic impact study conducted by Americans for the Arts shows that non-profit arts and culture program attendees spend an average of $27.79 on ancillary activities such as travel, meals and shopping. The Theatre's audience will have significant impact on neighborhood restaurants, shops and services each year.

The theatre itself will relocate approximately 20 full-time jobs and another 100 part-time/seasonal jobs, including artistic positions, to Brooklyn.

When Theatre for a New Audience is not producing its own work, the Theatre will rent its performance spaces to other groups at affordable rates, bringing much needed performance space to the community.

"Theatre for a New Audience's new home will serve as a distinctive destination point that will serve both artists and the community," said Theodore C. Rogers, Chairman of Theatre for a New Audience. MR. Rogers is also Chairman of the Capital Campaign. Honorary Chairs for the Campaign are Julie Taymor, who first worked with Theatre for a New Audience in 1984 and directed her first Shakespeare play, The Tempest, for the Theatre two years later; and Elliot Goldenthal, the award-winning composer who has also worked with Theatre for a New Audience.

The Theatre's three-phase Institution-Building Campaign began in 1996. In Phase I and II it raised $4 million to retire debt, establish a Working Capital Reserve and expand the number of our seasonal productions.

Phase III, with a goal of $62.5 Million, has the Theatre's own new home as its centerpiece: $47.5 Million for the building; $10 Million for an endowment; and $5 Million for operations and programming in the new building. $48.1 Million has been raised, including the entire construction cost.

The Theatre is on track to have raised $66.5 Million by the end of this Campaign to create a strong and vital institution.

Leadership gifts to date have included the City of New York, SHS Foundation (the late Samuel H. Scripps, a longtime Board Member of the Theatre), Theodore C. Rogers, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Irving Harris Foundation, Robert and the late Joan Arnow, Marlène Brody, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Having its own home will be a transformational step for Theatre for a New Audience, enhancing its institutional presence in New York. A home of distinctive design that is an anchor in a thriving cultural district will become a prominent feature on the City's cultural map, helping the Theatre to better serve its many communities in New York and beyond.