Horse Trade Theater Group Signs New Lease on UNDER St. Marks

On Wednesday, October 5, 2011 Horse Trade Theater Group signed a seven-year lease on UNDER St. Marks Theater, securing the space as an artistic playground for the numerous performance artists who have been calling the downtown theater home, including the many regular weekly and monthly shows like Penny's Open Mic, TOLD, Naked Girls Reading, Basterdpiece Theatre, Shotz, God Tastes Like Chicken, Adam Wade, The BTK Band, Sketch Block, Unlicensed, Legends of the Feather, Thank You Robot, The Vintage Vantage Variety Hour, Blogologues, Beaches 2, and KL's Tea Party as well as resident theatre companies The Pumpkin Pie Show, The Management, Subjective Theater Company, Rising Sun Performance Company, AMios, Direct Arts, No Tea Productions, Dysfunctional Theatre Company, Animal Parts, the FRIGID New York Festival, and numerous guest artists and renters.

"We are so happy and relieved to have come to this agreement so that UNDER St Marks can continue to be used by the artistic community of New York for experimentation, collaboration, and avant guarde performance" said Horse Trade Theater Group's Artistic Director, Heidi Grumelot. "We doubt that any other basement in this city enjoys as much continual creative activity as UNDER St. Marks. Ultimately we hope to safe guard USM so that we no longer need to focus on preserving the space for our artists, but can instead focus on producing and promoting the work of our artists."

"We would like to thank the entire community for standing behind us over the past couple of months and showing their support both in spirit and in actual dollars" stated Managing Director, Erez Ziv. "The monies raised through our fundraising campaign this summer have helped us to provide for a modest signing bonus and to offset the small rent increase over the next few years. We have not given up on the dream of owning our own space and are currently in discussions with our landlord to figure out a way to make this a reality."

UNDER St. Marks is a downtown performance venue with a rich history. An experimental theatre space since the 1960's, this 45-seat basement theater is now home to a wide variety of performance artists. Horse Trade intends to launch a capitol campaign in order to purchase the theater when their new lease runs out. For more information on the ongoing efforts and fundraising events please visit www.horseTRADE.info.

HORSE TRADE THEATER GROUP is a self-sustaining theater development group; with a focus on new work that has produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. Horse Trade's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. It is also the home of FRIGID New York - the first and only festival of its kind in New York City. In 2011 Horse Trade received the New York Innovative Theatre Honorary Ellen Stewart Stewardship Award for demonstrating a significant contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community through service, support and leadership.