Wake, Funeral For Iconic NYC Theater Saturday

MIDTOWN, NY — The Soho Rep, a staple of the experimental nonprofit Off-Off Broadway theater scene for more than three decades, is bringing down the curtain at its TriBeCa venue for a final time on Saturday as it prepares to vacate the 65-seat theater it has occupied since 1991.

The Rep's longtime organizers are leaning into the drama of the moment and hosting an all-day funeral for the venue on Saturday so its loyal fans and fellow thespians can pay their respects.

The event will also feature a wake of sorts, with mimosas, several eulogies and performances from members of its community, followed by an "estate sale" of posters from past productions.

Then, in the days after the space is laid to rest, the organizers will move the theater's operations to Midtown, where it will temporarily share space with the Playwrights Horizons, another nonprofit theater group, for the next two to three years.

“Sound designer Tei Blow recently described Walkerspace as the body, but the soul was whatever Soho Rep is," Soho Rep Director Eric Ting said about the venue, which is named Walkerspace.

The title of the all-day funeral event is "Soho Rep Is Not a Building. Soho Rep Had a Building...," organizers said.

"When we say ‘Soho Rep is not a building,’ that’s what we’re getting at: there’s something that’s not built into the brick and mortar that we will be able to carry with us. It binds every gesture we’ve made in our programming and planning this year together," Ting said.

Soho Rep has been operating as a nonprofit theater downtown since 1975, where it has been at the cutting edge of theater-making, premiering exciting Pulitzer Prize-winning shows like Jackie Sibblies Drury’s "Fairview," and works like Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s "Public Obscenities," which was a Pulitzer prize-nominated finalist this year.

The theater group is moving out of its space due to rising rent, as well as rising costs of maintaining the space, according to the New York Times.

"We’re exploring the elasticity between something’s essence and its container," Ting said.

Learn more about the event here. The Walkerspace is located at 45 Walker Street in TriBeCa.

For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.