About

The Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project serves to fill a gap in theater scholarship about an innovative period in post-WWII America by establishing a video archive featuring the artists who created Off- and Off-Off-Broadway. In their own words, actors, casting agents, directors, designers, press representatives, producers, playwrights, theater founders, and others share their personal accounts of how Off- and Off-Off-Broadway emerged and flourished. In the tradition of most oral history projects, these interviews receive little editing, which provides subjects the opportunity to discuss their theater, their art, and themselves in their own words.

The Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project's purpose is threefold:

1. To preserve the legacy of the founders of the Off- and Off-Off Broadway movement

2. To share that legacy with theater-lovers

3. To serve as a resource for artists in the creation of work and academics in support of their research

Primary Stages supports writers at all stages of their careers. The Oral History Project is an extension of this charge, preserving the memories of playwrights and fellow artists who, through their stories and hard-won lessons, become tacit mentors to a new generation of theater artists.

Explore the Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project here.

While we can't do any in person interviews now, we do have a bunch of new virtual content at Primary Plus: A Virtual Community here