The 2022-23 season marked Lynne Meadow’s 50th anniversary as Artistic Director of Manhattan Theatre Club. She was joined in summer 2023 by Chris Jennings, MTC’s new Executive Director. Over the past five decades, Manhattan Theatre Club has been a preeminent producer of the highest quality, award-winning theatrical productions of new works by American and international playwrights. Our over 600 premieres have been produced throughout the country and across the globe and have contributed a proud legacy to the American theatrical canon. In the 2023-24 season, all three of MTC’s Broadway shows were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, representing three of the five nominees in the category.
Our artistic mission, which Meadow created and has implemented since 1972, is to develop and present new work in a dynamic, supportive, environment; to identify and collaborate with the most promising new as well as seasoned, accomplished artists; and to produce a diverse repertoire of innovative, entertaining, and thought-provoking plays and musicals by American and international playwrights in our theatres each season. Our commitment to excellence extends to every aspect of the company: from the gifted permanent staff; to a supportive Board of Directors; to a first-rate Education program, which has served more than 100,000 students of all ages in New York City, across the country, and around the world; to a quality, paid career training program, which prepares the next generation of theatre professionals for jobs at MTC and beyond; to a robust behind-the-scenes developmental program for new work. MTC performs in multiple venues: our Broadway home at the 650- seat Samuel J. Friedman Theatre—formerly Biltmore Theatre—which we restored and reopened in 2003, and at New York City Center off-Broadway, where we created a 300-seat Stage I and a 150-seat Stage II.
MTC productions have earned 7 Pulitzer Prizes, 30 Tony Awards, 51 Drama Desk Awards, and 49 Obie Awards, amongst many other honors, but our success is not measured by awards. Instead, the merit of our work is represented by the output and talent of the myriad of writers and artists who have debuted at MTC and who continue to return for multiple productions. We are proud of the artists whom we have discovered and nurtured, as well as their impact on our industry.
Writers who have had an artistic home at MTC and returned throughout their careers include David Auburn (Proof; The Columnist; Summer, 1976); Alan Ayckbourn (Woman in Mind, Absent Friends, A Small Family Business, House/Garden, Absurd Person Singular); Charles Busch (The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Our Leading Lady); Harvey Fierstein (Casa Valentina, Bella Bella); Richard Greenberg (Eastern Standard, The American Plan, Three Days of Rain, The Assembled Parties); Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart, The Miss Firecracker Contest, The Lucky Spot); David Lindsay-Abaire (Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo, Rabbit Hole, Good People); Donald Margulies (The Loman Family Picnic, Sight Unseen, Collected Stories, Time Stands Still); Terrence McNally (It’s Only a Play; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune; The Lisbon Traviata; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Love! Valour! Compassion!); John Patrick Shanley (Women of Manhattan, Italian American Reconciliation, Doubt, Defiance, Outside Mullingar); Richard Wesley (The Sirens, The Past is the Past, The Talented Tenth), and Charlayne Woodard (Pretty Fire, Neat, In Real Life). We champion new voices and are constantly expanding the MTC family of writers. Some who have who have made their MTC debuts in recent seasons include Bekah Brunstetter (The Cake), Sarah Jones (Sell/ Buy/Date), Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man), Martyna Majok (Cost of Living), Dominique Morisseau (Skeleton Crew), Qui Nguyen (Vietgone), Amanda Peet (The Commons of Pensacola), and Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Lackawanna Blues).
MTC’s robust Artistic Development program offers dramaturgical support, readings, and workshops, as well as a wide range of commissions, which provide artists with the resources to create new work. Just a few of the many MTC commissions that have graced our stages in recent years include Prayer for the French Republic by Joshua Harmon, Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Heisenberg and Morning Sun by Simon Stephens. We have also produced plays by some of America’s most heralded writers, such as Lillian Hellman (The Little Foxes) and world premieres by John Guare (Gardenia), Elaine May (After the Night and the Music), Arthur Miller (The Last Yankee), Marsha Norman (Last Dance), Lynn Nottage (Ruined), and Sam Shepard (Eyes for Consuela).
Since our homegrown 1978 production of Ain’t Misbehavin’ moved to Broadway, we have given many modern American classics their Broadway debuts, including How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, Jitney by August Wilson (also The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, and King Hedley II), Fool for Love by Sam Shepard, Venus in Fur by David Ives, and Wit by Margaret Edson. Also since Ain’t Misbehavin’ made its mark on the canon of American musical theatre, we’ve shepherded to the stage musicals such as Stephen Sondheim’s Putting It Together, Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party, Alfred Uhry’s LoveMusik, and Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash’s Murder Ballad.
MTC also has a long history of bringing the work of important international writers to American audiences, including world premieres by Alan Ayckbourn; Translations and Aristocrats by Brian Friel; Valley Song, The Captain’s Tiger, and many others by Athol Fugard; Ink by James Graham; The Philanthropist by Christopher Hampton; East is East by Ayub Khan-Din; The Children by Lucy Kirkwood; the world premiere of A Kind of Alaska by Harold Pinter; Ashes by David Rudkin; The Ruins of Civilization and Linda by Penelope Skinner; The Memory of Water and An Experiment with an Air Pump by Shelagh Stephenson; Three Birds Alighting on a Field by Timberlake Wertenbaker; and The Father and The Height of the Storm by Florian Zeller.
These productions represent a fraction of the work we are proud to have shepherded over the last five decades. It is part of our ethos to resist resting on laurels, and to always to look forward to producing new and exciting theatre. We are committed to ensuring that the work on our stages is representative of a wide range of voices and perspectives, to sharing that work with as wide a range of audiences as possible, and to staying at the forefront of the American theatre.
Manhattan Theatre Club believes that equity, diversity and inclusion should be essential elements of all activity within the organization. We are proud to be a preeminent theatre in one of the most diverse cities in America and strive to represent that both on and off-stage.
We believe that the most interesting and successful theatrical pieces are those which allow us to identify with human characteristics we relate to and enlighten us to aspects of the human experience that are different from our own. We are strongly committed to producing work that is made by, and tells the stories of, a wide range of voices from all walks of life and to making that work accessible to all audiences including those that have historically lacked access to the arts and cultural sector.
We understand that to perpetuate growth and development, it is imperative that leadership, staff and artistic teams consist of people with a mix of ideas, perspectives and values which come from diverse backgrounds. We have made it a priority to create and maintain an environment that is attractive to and supportive of all individuals regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender identity, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, military or veteran status, etc.
MTC Education, which has been at the forefront of Arts Education for decades, is dedicated to equity, diversity and inclusion in everything we do. From our earliest days, MTC Education has worked not only with students in public high schools, but also extensively with youth on the margins – in jails and alternative programs and similar settings – who arguably most need the arts and seldom have them. We cherish opportunities to promote creative collaboration and thoughtful dialogue in our classrooms and to introduce disparate groups of young people to theatre’s miraculous power to transform an audience of many into one.
ALL ARTS DOCS: MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB, A HOME FOR ARTISTS
“ALL ARTS Docs: Manhattan Theatre Club, a Home for Artists” explores the influential theater’s 50-year history through interviews with David Auburn, Christine Baranski, André De Shields, Laura Linney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Waterston and more.
Traces the nonprofit Manhattan Theatre Club‘s storied 50-year history under the leadership of its artistic director Lynne Meadow and executive producer Barry Grove, who together grew the institution from an off-off-Broadway venue into one of America’s most acclaimed and prolific theatrical institutions.
The film charts the theater’s growth and the challenges facing the industry at large, revealing how Manhattan Theatre Club has endured as a space for creative experimentation and an artistic home for playwrights, directors, designers and actors.