WorkShop Theater Competitors

Conceived over 60 years ago as one of the nation’s first nonprofit theaters, The Public has long operated on the principles that theater is an essential cultural force and that art and culture belong to everyone. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, The Public’s wide breadth of programming includes an annual season of new work at its landmark home at Astor Place, Free Shakespeare in the Park at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, the Mobile Unit touring throughout New York City’s five boroughs, Public Works, Public Shakespeare Initiative, and Joe’s Pub. Since premiering HAIR in 1967, The Public continues to create the canon of American Theater and is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Their programs and productions can also be seen regionally across the country and around the world. The Public has received 60 Tony Awards, 190 Obie Awards, 57 Drama Desk Awards, 61 Lortel Awards, 36 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, 62 AUDELCO Awards, 6 Antonyo Awards, and 6 Pulitzer Prizes. Cover photo by Steve Brown

New York Theatre Workshop is a remarkable off-Broadway theatre noted for its acclaimed and innovative productions... a workshop where artists create new work, hone their craft and collaboratively explore theatre... all rooted in our cozy East Village digs located in the heart of New York's downtown arts scene. NYTW is committed to the development of innovative theatre by supporting theatre artists at all stages of their careers, providing an environment where work can be created free from the artistic compromise and forbidding financial demands often associated with commercial ventures. Over the past two decades, NYTW has evolved to become a significant force in New York City's vibrant cultural landscape and is now recognized as one of the leading producing theatres of original work in the United States. The Workshop places the artist at the center of its mission, and, as a result, the work developed and produced here is aesthetically, thematically, and methodologically diverse. During the course of a season, audiences can engage with an eclectic mix of theatre, including full-scale musicals, bare-bones readings, and multimedia productions. NYTW is renowned for producing intelligent and complex plays that expand the boundaries of theatrical form and in some new and compelling way address issues that are critical to our times. The Workshop boasts a long list of acclaimed work that includes Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Martha Clarke's KAOS and Vienna: Lusthaus (revisited), Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away and A Number, Jonathan Larson's Rent, Athol Fugard's My Children! My Africa!, John Guare's Lydie Breeze, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, and Ivo van Hove's productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Hedda Gabler. Will Power’s hip-hop Greek tragedy The Seven will be seen around the country in upcoming years.

Founded in 1991, Signature Theatre celebrates playwrights and gives them an artistic home, producing a body of work by each resident writer and a season of six to eight productions annually. In 2005, Signature began its groundbreaking Signature Ticket Initiative, providing affordable tickets to every production. In 2012, Signature opened the Pershing Square Signature Center, the Frank Gehry-designed 75,000 square foot Center featuring three theatres, two rehearsal studios, a central, public lobby with a café and bookstore, and administrative offices. In 2014, Signature became the first New York City theatre to receive the Regional Theatre Tony Award®.