BY SCOTT STIFFLER | The Irish Repertory Theatre is putting down roots by pulling up stakes.
Faced with a scenario familiar to mom and pop shops — being priced out of the neighborhood it played a part in rehabilitating — the nonprofit arts organization launched a multi-million dollar campaign to purchase and significantly upgrade the Chelsea facility it’s been renting since 1994.
Having broken ground in September, IRT is in the early stages of hammering its beloved West 22nd Street theater to smithereens — while just 10 blocks away, in Union Square, the first production of its 2014-2015 season is underway at the DR2 Theatre. Eighteen months from now, upon their return to Chelsea’s 1911-built Stanwick Building, IRT will have realized its goal of establishing a permanent home immune to rent increases or lease negotiations.
“We take full responsibility for the up-and-coming neighborhood that happened,” quipped Producing Director and co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly while discussing the area’s tremendous upswing in residential and commercial viability over the past two decades. Although said in good humor, there’s also hard-earned pride in his tone as O’Reilly recalls IRT’s first year on the Sixth to Seventh Ave. portion of W. 22nd St. “We were the pioneers,” he says, noting that in 1994, “there was a strip club down the street called the Harmony [Burlesque] Theatre. It was quite the dingy block. When we moved in, our theater had been a chemical warehouse with a shop front that sold industrial chemicals. There were photography, rehearsal and recording studios. It was very much a working building.”
The affable family who ran that chemical business also owned The Stanwick, and they offered what O’Reilly describes as a “very nice 12-year lease.” After months spent transforming the space into a 137-seat theater, they had a show up and running by September of 1995 (Geraldine Aron’s “Same Old Moon”). This gave IRT its first stable home, after a half-decade spent roaming from the 18th Street Playhouse to Tada! Theater to the Actors Playhouse and The Public Theater.
Over the course of its tenure in Chelsea, IRT’s 150+ productions of Irish and Irish-American classic and contemporary work have received dozens of Drama Desk, Obie, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle nominations and awards for both creative and technical achievement. Irish American included co-founder Charlotte Moore on its “50 Most Influential Women” list, and the Wall Street Journal gave her its 2011 “Director of the Year” award. Today, the theater can claim annual attendance of over 45,000 and a rightful place as one of the city’s most prolific Off-Broadway theater companies. Apart from making an impressive showing in the program you’re given at its current production (the immensely enjoyable “Port Authority”), IRT’s accumulated accolades proved useful when the building was sold — for condo conversion — to Time Equities Inc. in 2003/2004. The attention it received over the years, and the friends it made along the way, proved essential to the company’s long-term survival.
“We got the opportunity to purchase our two floors,” says O’Reilly. “It was a question of either buying, or losing the space when our lease expired. We had a 12-year that would have brought us up to 2007. After that, it would probably have been the end of us, or at least the end of our time in Chelsea.” So they began a $13 million “Campaign For a Permanent Home” that’s been well-received by IRT members and was given early, crucial momentum from Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, then-City Council speaker (and local district rep) Christine Quinn, and current Comptroller (then-Manhattan Borough President) Scott Stringer. State Senator Brad Hoylman, City Councilmember Corey Johnson and the de Blasio administration have also given support — and those who’ve donated $1 million or more include the City of New York and Frances Greenburger (of Time Equities Inc.).
All of this has put a very respectable amount of red mercury in the goal thermometer chart, but O’Reilly says the capital campaign “is most certainly not done. We need to raise three million more for the mortgage and the cost of renovation. Six million is being covered by the city and administered through the Department of Design and Construction. They’re the ones doing the actual construction.” Add in the costs of producing nearly two seasons at the DR2 as well as the rental of temporary office space, and a fully funded campaign allows for “a little cushion, but not a substantial one. We’re not trying to expand hugely like so many organizations who get the opportunity to do that, then don’t have the funds to continue. We intend to operate pretty much as we have for the past 20 years, just in a more comfortable, greener facility.”
When the dust settles, IRT’s façade, lobby, theater and upstairs spaces will have undergone significant upgrades. In addition to more creature comforts (two new second floor bathrooms), the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage space will get state-of-the-art sound and lighting. Construction of a balcony will compensate for the loss of its side space (long a bone of contention for its partially blocked views), and bump capacity up to 150. “We’re removing some of the walls to make it look more spacious,” says O’Reilly of the old, decidedly cozy (but not quite claustrophobic) theater. On the second floor, the front offices will be replaced with a rehearsal hall allowing passersby a literal and figurative window into the creative process. A new HVAC system and LED stage lighting using 50 percent less power than the old machinery will earn the revamped facility a Silver LEED [Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design] rating.
In the meantime, a visit to IRT’s temporary home at the DR2 Theatre makes for a bit of déjà vu to those familiar with the old 22nd St. space. “It’s similar,” says O’Reilly, “in that it has all the intimacy of the Irish Rep. We’ve redone the lobby [with production posters] to reflect our past work, and we had images of our [22nd St. lobby] stained glass made and put in the windows.” Close to home if not a precise replica, DR2 has another advantage, says O’Reilly, who notes that “Most of the theaters in New York, like the Atlantic or the Signature, they have their own seasons to put together, so availability comes in bits and pieces. But we wanted to do a full season, so if a show warranted an extension, we could do that.”
IRT recently launched its 27th season, with the O’Reilly-directed “Port Authority.” On the DR2 boards through Nov. 16, Conor McPherson’s trio of monologues briskly shifts back and forth between the reflections of a young, middle-aged, and old man — all of whom are still living with the consequences of unrealized romantic and career ambitions. Sharply acted and simply staged, this revival marks a return by playwright McPherson, whose supernatural-infused “The Weir” was exceptionally well-received by audiences and critics during its 2013 IRT run.
More details on the 2014-2015 season will follow — but for now, the DR2 is already booked for the New York premiere of “A Christmas Memory” (Nov. 25–Jan. 4). Based on the short story by Truman Capote, it’s the latest effort to make IRT a family-friendly holiday destination (past shows include a live radio play version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the Dylan Thomas favorite, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”). Shortly after “Memory” closes, Hugh Leonard’s “Da” begins its Jan. 14–March 8 run. Set in 1960s Dublin, it concerns the flood of memories unleashed by a father whose stubborn ghost refuses to leave the house that his son is cleaning out.
As for his own Irish abode in upheaval, O’Reilly is looking forward to the day when a better and stronger IRT is ready for its open-ended run on W. 22nd St. “It’s wonderful to be able to stay in Chelsea,” he says, “because so many people flock here for the arts. But like so many things in New York, the reason they come here gets priced out, and what you’re left with is a bunch of fancy homes and condos for incredible prices. It’s fantastic that we’re managing to stay here, and live within the place that we built.”
“Port Authority” plays through Nov. 16. Tues./Thurs. at 7 p.m., Fri. at 8 p.m., Wed./Sat. at 3 & 8 p.m. and Sun. at 3 p.m. At the DR2 Theatre (103 E. 15th St. in Union Square). For tickets ($70), call 212-727-2737 or visit irishrep.org.
