Welcome to the Elk City Playhouse!
There are currently 41 theaters in the Broadway Theater District and, on any given day over 200 smaller theaters in the 5 boroughs that make up New York City. Many of these smaller venues hold fewer than one hundred souls, cast included. Many have folding chair or benches or church pews for seating and many more with little or no stage other than an empty space on the floor. Yet, speak with an average New Yorker and it’s those venues they’re more likely to patronize for a wide variety of reasons including the obvious convenience and ticket price but also for the rawness of the productions, the artistic challenges, the commonness, and, perhaps even the surprising genius of the players and playwrights.
Acting on a small stage is an artistic environment devoutly to be wished. There’s no faking when the audience is 6 feet away; no bluffing your lines or phoning it in and, if the writing is good enough, even the smallest role can transport a viewer to moments greater than themselves. For a writer, the small stage is heaven, where lines need not be translated over the resonance of the hall, but directly into the resonance of the soul. Actors don’t dare pontificate on a small stage, just as writers don’t dare bullshit. But, if both of them can endure or, hopefully, flourish in the reality of the production, then viewing it will often be life changing.
And that’s what we hope for in every production at the Elk City Playhouse. Come join us. Text
