American Place Theatre

The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan at St. Clement's Church, far west on 46th Street in New York City and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennessee Williams and Myrna Loy were two of the original Board members. The first full production was The Old Glory, a trilogy of three one-acts by the poet Robert Lowell, produced in November 1964. The play would go on to win five Obie Awards the following year, including "Best American Play."

In addition to producing Robert Lowell's first play, The American Place Theatre has produced and developed the first plays of outstanding writers from other literary forms including Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Paul Goodman, H. L. Mencken, Joyce Carol Oates, S. J. Perelman, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, May Swenson, and Robert Penn Warren.

Significant playwrights have been nurtured and, in many cases, initially produced at The American Place, such as:

Also, major attention has been brought to unconventional, contemporary actor/writers such as Eric Bogosian, Bill Irwin, John Leguizamo, Aasif Mandvi, and Dael Orlandersmith.

The American Place Theatre played an important role in the emerging African-American theatre beginning in the early 1960s by producing the first productions of plays by Michael Bradford, Ed Bullins, Kia Corthron, James de Jongh, Joseph Edward, Lonne Elder III, Phillip Hayes Dean, Elaine Jackson, Alonzo D. Lamont Jr., Ron Milner, Matt Robinson, Charlie L. Russell, and Vincent Smith.

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