Soho Repertory Theatre

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Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American off-Broadway theater company in New York City. It specializes in avant-garde plays by contemporary writers and runs a small 65-seat theatre in Tribeca. The company is regarded as a cultural pillar and has won many awards, including Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize for the play Fairview in 2019. It has also received a Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement, recognizing nearly four decades of distinctive work.

Since 2019, Soho Rep has used a shared leadership model with multiple directors. For a period, Sarah Benson, Cynthia Flowers, and Meropi Peponides led the company together; Benson and Peponides left in 2023, and in 2023 Caleb Hammons and Eric Ting joined Cynthia Flowers as co-directors. The theatre has an annual budget around $2 million and about seven full-time staff. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the company paid eight artists to work for the 2020–21 season through Project Number One.

History in brief
- Founded in 1975 by Jerry Engelbach and Marlene Swartz. They opened in a former textile factory at 19 Mercer Street and produced their first play, Key Largo, on September 25, 1975.
- The early focus was on rarely seen classical plays by writers like Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Molière, and Beckett.
- By 1979 they sometimes staged two shows in one night.
- In 1981 they produced their first new play, The Idol Makers by Stephen Davis Parks.
- After Engelbach left in 1989, Swartz partnered with English director Julian Webber until 1999.
- Artistic Directors included Daniel Aukin (1998–2006) and, beginning in 2007, Sarah Benson.
- The company moved from a smaller off-off-Broadway model to an off-Broadway contract, expanding to larger spaces.
- In 1991 the company settled at Walkerspace, 46 Walker Street in Tribeca, after previous moves including a 1985 relocation to a 100-seat theater attached to Bellevue Hospital.

Notable impact and productions
- Soho Rep has hosted many important artists early in their careers, including David Adjmi, Annie Baker, Lucas Hnath, and Jackie Sibblies Drury.
- Productions have been described as “jaw-dropping premieres” and “big plays in a small room,” and the New York Times called it a “safer home for dangerous plays.”
- Notable shows include Sarah Kane’s Blasted (which helped Benson win an Obie) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon (which won an Obie for Best New American Play and moved to a larger theater). Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is helped revive Walkerspace, and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Recent changes and future plans
- Soho Rep has hosted annual galas and has moved venues several times due to rent and building issues.
- In July 2024, the company announced it would leave Walkerspace because of rising rent, accessibility problems, and ongoing repair costs. It planned to share space with Playwrights Horizons while it considers long-term plans.

Online
- ohorep.org

Soho Rep remains a key site for bold, contemporary theatre in New York, continuing to support new and ambitious playwrights in intimate, provocative productions.