La MaMa E.T.C.
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| Address | 74 E 4th St New York City United States |
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| Designation | New York City Landmark |
| Type | Off-Off-Broadway |
| Capacity | Ellen Stewart Theatre: 299 The First Floor Theatre: 99 The Club: 125 |
| Opened | 1961 |
| Website | |
| www |
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La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (La MaMa E.T.C.) is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for fledgling playwrights at night. La MaMa has evolved during its over fifty-year history into a world-renowned cultural institution.
In its earliest days, La MaMa was a theatre dedicated to the playwright, encouraging young playwrights and primarily producing new plays, including works by Paul Foster, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, and Rochelle Owens. La MaMa also acted as an international ambassador for off-off Broadway playwriting by touring downtown playwriting abroad during the 1960s.
La MaMa is the only theatre of the 1960s off-off Broadway movement's four core theatres that continues to thrive today. The other three off-off Broadway theatres that composed this core included Joe Cino's Caffe Cino, Al Carmines' Judson Poets Theatre, and Ralph Cook's Theatre Genesis. More than any other off-off Broadway programmer, Stewart reached out beyond the East Village location, forcing new trends rather than following.
La MaMa says about its mission that it is dedicated to "the people who make art, and it is to them that we give our support with free theatre and rehearsal space, lights, sound, props, platforms, and whatever else we have that they can use to create their work. We want them to feel free to explore their ideas, and translate them into a theatrical language that can communicate to any person in any part of the world."
Ellen Stewart is the spirit of La MaMa; she is its guardian, janitor, fund raiser, press agent, tour manager, conceptual leader—she is the guts of the place. To understand this theatre one must first know Ellen Stewart.
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