EGN NEWS DESK
In a vivid illustration of a quickly altering actual property panorama for theaters in New York, the industrial manufacturing firm that has introduced Kit Connor, Rachel Zegler and George Clooney to Broadway is taking on a centrally situated Off Broadway theater vacated by the nonprofit that lengthy produced work there.
Seaview Productions, an more and more prolific producer of exhibits on Broadway, has begun leasing the previous financial institution constructing on the sting of New York’s theater district that for the final 25 years has been a house to one of many metropolis’s main nonprofits, Second Stage Theater.
The constructing was beforehand often known as the Tony Kiser Theater, after a Second Stage trustee, and will probably be renamed Studio Seaview.
Second Stage, citing excessive prices, moved out on the finish of final 12 months. Seaview plans to start presenting Off Broadway exhibits there this spring.
The change comes as nonprofits, nonetheless struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, are giving up areas or taking over tenants as they search to chop prices. At the identical time, industrial producers, daunted by the excessive prices of engaged on Broadway, are hungrily searching for inexpensive locations to mount for-profit exhibits.
The venue now altering fingers is in Midtown Manhattan, on the bustling northwest nook of Eighth Avenue and West forty third Street. The efficiency house, which has been configured with 296 seats, was notably designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and a New York affiliate, Richard Gluckman.
Seaview is led by Greg Nobile, 32, a Connecticut native who dropped out of school to pursue a profession in producing and who has concurrently run a collection of bars (he presently has the Friki Tiki in Hell’s Kitchen). Nobile based Seaview in 2012, backed by Jana Shea, the mom of one in all his childhood mates; since 2020 the corporate has been half-owned by Sony Music Masterworks, a division of Sony Music that has been investing in reside occasions.
Seaview, which says it has raised $50 million for its productions since its founding, was a smaller however formidable participant on Broadway earlier than the pandemic — within the 2019-2020 season, it produced a starry pair of monologues referred to as “Sea Wall/A Life,” starring Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal, and the much-discussed “Slave Play,” written by Jeremy O. Harris. The firm has turn out to be extra prolific over the previous two years: This season it’s producing 5 Broadway exhibits, together with “Romeo + Juliet,” starring Connor and Zegler, and the forthcoming “Good Night, and Good Luck,” starring Clooney. It additionally has two exhibits Off Broadway and two exhibits on London’s West End. The firm has additionally begun working in movie and tv.
In current years Audible, which is owned by Amazon, started leasing the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village; A24, the movie studio, bought the Cherry Lane Theater within the West Village; and Netflix assumed management of the Paris Theater in Midtown.
Seaview, whose exhibits are sometimes talked-about occasions, believes there’s a rising marketplace for starry, short-run, small-space performs in New York, and says that some artists favor the decrease stakes of Off Broadway. “We have discovered that, particularly post-Covid, viewers members, stars and creators are hungry for extra intimate areas,” stated Nate Koch, the corporate’s chief working officer.
The firm was among the many producers of three worthwhile Off Broadway revivals — an intimate “Sweeney Todd” in 2017, and two star-driven productions, “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” in 2023, that includes Aubrey Plaza, and “Hold On to Me Darling” final 12 months, starring Adam Driver. On Broadway, the corporate has had some disastrous flops, just like the musical “Lempicka,” in addition to some successes, like final 12 months’s revival of “An Enemy of the People” that starred Jeremy Strong, and the play “Stereophonic.” (“Stereophonic” introduced final week, days earlier than its restricted Broadway run ended and simply after settling a copyright lawsuit, that it had recouped its capitalization prices and would each tour and play London.)
On stability, the corporate is worthwhile, stated Nobile, who’s the corporate’s chief govt.
He stated that one of many main challenges dealing with unbiased producers was discovering accessible areas to current their work, and that leasing a constructing ought to give the corporate extra management. “It was time for Seaview to take a step ahead,” he stated, “and the route we determined to push the enterprise into was discovering methods to take the distribution downside that’s inherent to the industrial theater producer’s world and take management of it.”
Seaview will proceed to supply on Broadway however will now do extra Off Broadway as nicely. “It’s been a giant a part of our enterprise over the past couple seasons, and we’ve had a whole lot of enjoyable doing it,” Nobile stated.
The firm has retained the scenic designer Scott Pask to refurbish the Off Broadway theater. Pask stated his objective was to make the house extra intimate and welcoming, with “the nice and cozy draw of a lantern.” The first present, Nobile stated, will probably be directed by Sam Gold, who led the revivals of “Romeo + Juliet” and “An Enemy of the People.”
The size of Seaview’s lease is unsure. The constructing is owned by Trans World Equities Inc., and Nobile stated “the location will doubtless be developed in some unspecified time in the future.” He stated the owner advised Seaview it could give at the least a 12 months’s discover earlier than the theater firm would wish to vacate the constructing.
Next month, Second Stage will start presenting its Off Broadway work on the Pershing Square Signature Center, a Frank Gehry-designed house on West forty second Street that’s operated by Signature Theater, one other prestigious however financially challenged nonprofit. Second Stage additionally produces on Broadway, primarily on the Helen Hayes Theater, which it owns, and the place it’s now producing the play “Cult of Love.”
