6. Theater for the New City

Theater for the New City was founded after the Off-Off-Broadway movement. The theater was established in 1971 to produce radical plays and engage with their local communities. In the theater’s s initial years, the theater moved around. The theater originally set their roots at the Westbeth Artists Community in the West Village, a community which still exists today. The group then traveled to the Jane Street Theater before making a pit stop at a former tabernacle church in the East Village and finally settling down in a former retail market that was re-designed. This is where Theater for the New City still lives today.

Aside from producing many influential playwrights that made their impact in other theaters on this list, TNC (as it is affectionately referred) is dedicated to community involvement. Programs like the Lower East Side Festival for the Arts and an annual five borough tour of original plays with local community actors are some of the ways that TNC engages the community.

A little known fact is that Theater for the New City started the annual Village Halloween Parade.  TNC will be running its annual Summer Street Theater Tour in August.

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