The Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project serves to fill a gap in theater scholarship about an innovative period in post WWII America by establishing a video archive featuring the artists who created Off- and Off-Off-Broadway. In their own words, actors, casting agents, directors, designers, press representatives, producers, playwrights, theater founders and others share their personal accounts of how Off- and Off-Off-Broadway emerged and flourished.
Under the leadership of Project Director Sally Plass, and Executive Producer Casey Childs, the Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project has already conducted over 150 hours of interviews with over 60 Off-Broadway leaders since June 2014. Among those to have contributed first-hand accounts to date include:
JoAnne Akalaitis - Director, Co-Founder of Mabou Mines
B.H. Barry - Fight Director
George Bartenieff - Actor, Co-Founder of Theater For The New City
Tanya Berezin - Actress, Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Circle Repertory Theater
Shami Chaikin - Actress with The Open Theater, sister of Joseph Chaikin
Kathleen Chalfant - Actress
Tisa Chang - Founder, Pan Asian Repertory Theater
Ping Chong - Director, Choreographer, Video Installation Artist
Marilyn Chris - Actress, with The Living Theater, Jewish Repertory Theater
Bill Cwikowski - Actor, Founding Member of Ensemble Studio Theater
Barbara Dana - Actress, Playwright
Merle Debuskey - Press Agent
Donald and Anne Farber - Theatrical Lawyers and Producers
Fyvush Finkel - Actor and Comedian from the Second Avenue Yiddish theaters and Vaudeville
Richard Foreman - Playwright, Director and Founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater
Paul Foster - Playwright, President of La Mama E.T.C.
Arthur French - Actor, with The Negro Ensemble Company, Director
John Guare - Playwright
Walter and Georgia Hadler - Actors, Playwright, Director with Theater Genesis
Wynn Handman - Artistic Director and Co-Founder, The American Place Theater
Terese Hayden - Founder, Equity Library Theater, The Players’ Guide; Teacher, at Circle In The Square
Robert Heide and John Gilman - Playwright, Actors, Authors
Dana Ivey - Actress, Inducted in The American Theater Hall of Fame
Robert Kalfin - Founder, The Chelsea Theater Center
Willa Kim - Costume Designer
Woodie King, Jr. - Founder, The New Federal Theater
Eric Krebs - Producer, Founder, George Street Playhouse, John Houseman Theater
Paul Libin - Producer, Managing Director, Theater Founder
Jo Sullivan Loesser - Actress, Singer
Joan Macintosh - Actress, Director, Co-Founder, The Performance Garage
Judith Malina - Actress, Director, Co-Founder, The Living Theater
Peter Maloney - Actor, Director, Playwright, with The Open Theater, E.S.T. and Lincoln Center Theater
Norman Thomas Marshall - Actor, Playwright, Founder and Artistic Director, The No Smoking Playhouse
Marshall W. Mason - Founder and Artistic Director, Circle Repertory Company
Roberta Maxwell - Actress
Elizabeth McCann - Producer
Lynne Meadow - Artistic Director, Co-Founder Manhattan Theater Club
Charles Mee - Playwright
Robert Moss - Founder, Artistic Director, Playwrights Horizons
Brian Murray - Actor, Director
Dorothy Olim - General Manager, Press Agent, Producer, Director of ATPAM
Steve Olson - Restaurateur
Gail Merrifield Papp - Head of Literary Department, NYSF/The Public Theater
Robert Patrick - Playwright, Caffe Cino
Austin Pendleton - Actor, Director, Playwright
Larry Pine - Actor
Albert Poland - General Manager, Producer, Actor, Press Agent, Book Editor
Everett Quinton - Actor, Producer, Director, Playwright, The Ridiculous Theater Company
David Rothenberg - Press Agent, Founder, The Fortune Society
Richard Schechner - Co-founder of The Performance Group, Teacher, Director, Playwright
Rosemarie Tichler - Casting Director, Associate Producer, NYSF/The Public Theater
Jean-Claude Van Itallie - Playwright, Actor
Douglas Turner Ward - Founder, Artistic Director, The Negro Ensemble Company
Elizabeth Wilson - Actress with the Public Theater and Circle in the Square Theatre
Paul Zimet - Actor, with The Open Theater, Founder, The Talking Band
Primary Stages hopes to capture interviews with more leaders in the Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway and alternative theater movements in New York City, focusing on artists from both non-profit companies as well as notable commercial productions. Primary Stages plans to eventually create a website so these interviews can be accessed free-of-charge by future generations of audiences, artists and scholars. In the tradition of most oral history projects, these interviews will receive little editing. The interviews will run between two and three hours and are the subjects’ opportunity to discuss their theatre, their art and themselves in their own words.
For additional information or to support the Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project, please email: oralhistory@primarystages.org.
