Fred Papert

Advertising Executive, Preservationist, Founder of the 42nd Street Development Corporation

Interview #52

"I was walking down the street, this garbage street…[Robert Moss] runs out of the office of [this building]...and says... ‘What are guys like you wearing a shirt and tie doing on a street like this?’ and I said ‘Well, we’re a group of people, we’d like to change all this.’"
Fred Papert

Gail Merrifield Papp

Director of Plays and Musicals Development at the New York Shakespeare Festival/The Public Theater

Interview #55

"This [was] a three-story building and Joe [Papp] was projecting five theaters to be created inside, all to do new American plays. Nobody else was thinking on this kind of scale."
Gail Merrifield Papp

Nicky Paraiso

Actor, Dancer, Musician, Writer, Performance Artist, Producer, Curator, The Club/La Mama

Interview #101

"All of the people…I have worked with are perfectionists in their own right, and I’ve learned what virtuosity and rigor can be. In my own curation, I try to be as vigilant to virtuosity and rigor as much as I can."
Nicky Paraiso

Gilbert Parker

Literary Agent

Interview #115

"If a play was a success Off-Broadway, the rights to do it were as much as the Broadway plays...I fought that fight and won it."
Gilbert Parker

Estelle Parsons

Actress, Director

Interview #72

"I was a very serious actress…for me it was a very huge and profound passion."
Estelle Parsons

Lola Pashalinski

Performance Artist, Actor

Interview #126

"We have gone beyond the absurd. We are absolutely ridiculous. Camp was made to unseat given notions of morals and culture and turn them on their heads."
Lola Pashalinski

Robert Patrick

Playwright, Caffe Cino

Interview #45

"When artists stopped having to pay rent in theaters is when Off-Off-Broadway happened. Places that made their living by other means: coffee houses, bars, churches, book stores."
Robert Patrick

Ralph B. Peña

Founding Member Ma-Yi Theatre Group, Director, Playwright, Actor

Interview #89

"The key thing here is, I got to connect this idea of theatre as a social instrument, of engaging people in conversation and getting them to mobilize, getting them to act…we were out to shatter this audience-spectator relationship. It was never a passive thing…and we did it with no money."
Ralph B. Peña

Austin Pendleton

Actor, Director, Playwright

Interview #35

"The flexibility of Off-Broadway has just been true from the moment I first became involved with it."
Austin Pendleton

Larry Pine

Actor

Interview #42

"We're going to have to have support for the arts by the government again. I think if that happened we might have those companies again."
Larry Pine

Albert Poland

General Manager, Producer, Actor, Author - STAGES: A Theater Memoir

Interview #25

"My favorite time of my life (sic) were all of my Off-Broadway years…whether we had a hit or a flop, the process was exhilarating and full of surprises."
Albert Poland

Ramona Ponce

Costume Designer, Teacher, Author

Interview #187

"For the first time I saw a company get together and become their characters through their costumes and look at one another and see how everybody else was becoming their character… it was one character speaking to another…it was like Christmas…a revelation..I was hooked."
Ramona Ponce

Marianne de Pury

Director, Composer, Translator, Founder, Sante Fe Ensemble

Interview #149

"All I care about is the play… if your idea is better than mine, we’ll do yours. It’s the play that counts."
Marianne de Pury

Everett Quinton

Actor, Producer, Director, Ridiculous Theatrical Company

Interview #20

"The rules of drama….if you play action, you have a million choices."
Everett Quinton

Janet Reed

Actor, Playwright, Producer, Writer, Editor Co-Founder, Primary Stages, Editorial Director — Educational Division, Scholastic Inc.

Interview #163

"“…You fall in love with these plays…you really want them to have a life, you want everyone to love them as much as you do. You want your cast and your playwright to hear the recognition and appreciation."
Janet Reed

Eleanor Reissa

Actor, Singer, Director, Playwright, Choreographer

Interview #161

"I found myself in the Off-Off-Broadway world where text was sound and body, where there was no he-said, she-said monologue or anything… Text was grunting and moving and Grotowski and Peter Brook… That was my theatrical upbringing; I didn’t know text.”…“I feel like it’s almost time to do theater in the apartments again, that it’s time to just let people line up outside your door and do something right there..."
Eleanor Reissa

Elinor Renfield

Director, Educator

Interview #155

"I have always believed the key to the secret of the play was in how t it moved.....inner tempos....sense of space...expansive or the opposite. The language feels like stanzas within that movement. This is not my "method" it is simply how I like to get the cleanest truest story."
Elinor Renfield

Ruby Lynn Reyner

Actress, Singer, Songwriter, Playwright, Director

Interview #171

"Theater is alive and well in Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway. The theater, when you go back to Shakespeare, used to be for the people. Off-Off-Broadway is for the people, not for the wealthy. I don’t know how people can afford to go to the theater now. A hundred bucks is the going rate."
Ruby Lynn Reyner

Marilyn Roberts

Actress, Director, Playwright

Interview #169

"Kevin O’Connor and I were always the first ones waiting for Dr. Herbert Blau…I was really fascinated by his kind of wild avant-garde theater…I was attracted to it, for some reason."
Marilyn Roberts

James Rocco

Director, Choreographer, Writer, Actor, Singer, Founder Thirty Saints Music Licensing and Thirty Saints Productions

Interview #195

"I think the Off and Off-Off-Broadway movement is what is coming to a head today…pushing the envelope and opening the door to all kinds of stage performances. It’s an extension of what we were doing off and off-off Broadway."
James Rocco

Rosalba Rolón

Co-Founder Pregones Theater, Director, Actor

Interview #90

"We exist in a multi-lingual environment so that any language is welcome…the sense of diversity is life practice…that is assumed…it is about all of us, our multicultural family."
Rosalba Rolón

Cathy Roskam

Actress, Producer, Director and Founder of the Joseph Jefferson Theatre Company (JJTC), Bishop

Interview #209

"In the church we talk about “call.” Everybody has a call of one sort or another—that thing in your heart that you’re really drawn to do with your life. For me it was acting. I thought I was going to be an actress my whole life. To my surprise, The Joseph Jefferson Theatre Company situated in Church of the Transfiguration became the bridge and catalyst to another calling, but I will never forget my sixteen years in the theater. Live theater is a great humanizing force for which there is no substitute."
Cathy Roskam

Stuart Ross

Director, Playwright, Lyricist

Interview #179

"Low self esteem is always an audience pleaser…and building a family. Those two things are crucial in musical theater."
Stuart Ross

Daryl Roth

Producer

Interview #115

"I love Off-Broadway for the experience that both the actors and the audiences share in an intimate space. Off-Broadway is where you have the freedom to champion new voices, support emerging creative talent, and explore a wide range of ideas and stories."
Daryl Roth

David Rothenberg

Founder of The Fortune Society, Press Agent

Interview #21

"I suddenly realized how easy it was to get into that world…all you had to do was do your work, laugh at the right time, and that the theatre was very democratic."
David Rothenberg

Donn Russell

Foundation Director, Author

Interview #60

"I thought, well, if I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to really do it. Maybe it’s better if I don’t know anything about setting up a foundation. We can just do our own [thing]. And that’s how it all started. I just kept going to shows."
Donn Russell

Mark Russell

Director, Producer, Artistic Director, Producing Artistic Director, PS 122, Under The Radar/The Public

Interview #191

"I felt like that community (dance) needed me. At that time dancers were trying to talk, tell their stories…the beginning of the crossover between dance and performance art …and I could say, ‘you know, if you hold your head still they will understand what you’re saying."
Mark Russell

Amy Saltz

Director

Interview #119

"I always wanted to be the best director, not the best woman director…You learn as much about the play and it’s world as you can. Then you jump off a cliff with your collaborators.……then you finally land. Hopefully."
Amy Saltz

Don Scardino

Actor, Director, Producer

Interview #151

"The whole Off-Broadway scene was all - it was a real scene. The nightlife in the Village was so active between the clubs, the cabarets, the jazz, the theater; it was very vibrant and very alive. And I felt that this is great, I’ve really made it now, it doesn’t get any better than this."
Don Scardino

Richard Schechner

Founder of The Performance Group, Author, Director, Playwright, Professor

Interview #57

"I feel that theatre, rather than wresting permanence from the remorseless rush of time, surfs across life to discover how the waves of time, space, and individual and social lives continuously reshape experiences and knowledge."
Richard Schechner

Julian Schlossberg

Producer

Interview #62

"You don’t have to be on Broadway. You can do these shows much more inexpensively and make as much, and even more, Off-Broadway. --- You’re the camera in the theatre. You’re not the camera in the movie or television, the director is telling you what you are watching. But you watch what you want in the theatre."
Julian Schlossberg

Terry Schreiber

Director, Teacher, Founder of the T. Schreiber Studio

Interview #103

"You’ve got to find the internal connections that you make to this role if you’re going to touch me sitting out there in the audience, and move me, and convince me that I’m watching a real person up there."
Terry Schreiber

Oz Scott

Director

Interview #185

"Yeah…so you just throw yourself into it and just do it. Sometimes people limit themselves and say, ‘I can’t do something,’…I say yes I’ll do it. I survived. Put one foot in front of the other and keep working…’Oz is sorta a wild card in a lotta ways.’ "
Oz Scott

Tina Shepard

Co-Founder, The Talking Band, Actor, Director

Interview #122

"I think there’s an energy coming up that’s gonna be amazing."
Tina Shepard

Guy Sherman A.k.a. Aural Fixation

Composer, Sound Designer

Interview #140

"As far as Off-Broadway…I want to see real people in intimate theater. That’s going to satisfy me."
Guy Sherman A.k.a. Aural Fixation

Lois Smith

Actress

Interview #66

"It was very different in the 50's. There was a lot of new live television. Lots of plays, Broadway plays, lots."
Lois Smith

Ted Snowdon

Producer, Philanthropist, Activist

Interview #125

"I am far from an independent producer. I’m a codependent producer."
Ted Snowdon

Ben Sprecher

Producer, General Manager, Theatre Manager

Interview #124

"In theater, you are what you're doing in the moment"
Ben Sprecher

Ted Story

Co-Founder of the Impossible Ragtime Theater (IRT), Artistic Director, Actor, Director, Author

Interview #108

"American theater is way, way ahead of itself because it had Off-Off-Broadway."
Ted Story

Black-Eyed Susan

Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Actress

Interview #58

"[Charles Ludlam] came to watch me make up, and I had a black eye, it was self-induced … I was trying to erase the black eye and he said, ‘No! Put black on it, make it darker … I think we’re gonna call you Black-Eyed Susan’"
Black-Eyed Susan

Rosemarie Tichler

Casting Director and Artistic Producer of NYSF/The Public

Interview #43

"You have to have a cast that looks like New York."
Rosemarie Tichler

Jennifer Tipton

Lighting

Interview #118

"So, my job was to look to critique the dancers. As I say, I looked at the bigger picture and that was light and I fell in love with it and I've been in love with it ever since."
Jennifer Tipton

Ilion Troya

Actor, Designer, Writer, Translator, Member of The Living Theatre

Interview #123

"There was hardly ever a dull moment in The Living Theatre."
Ilion Troya