Queens Theatre Needs
To Be Updated
Most of the popular local
community theatres are in urgent need of new theater venues! The conditions of
the state-of-the-art locales where the local community theaters are located are
becoming really miserable. On the contrary, The Pershing Square Signature
Center located on the 42nd Street near 10th Avenue in Manhattan was opened in
the year 2012. The funding was made via
public-private partnership, whereas the city of New York allocated $27.5
million.
It is designed by a famous architect Frank
Gehry and comprises of three theaters with one having 294 and other two with
191 occupancy respectively. It also has two studios, a shared lobby with a café
and a bookshop, and offices spread across 75,000 square feet. Mayor Michael
Bloomberg understood the significance of such cultural organisation, as he
stated that “cultural institutions are the lifeblood of our city”, he further
added that the center is “a big, bold transformative project, that will bring
more people, more growth, and more vitality” to Manhattan’s West Side.
Being such a huge and having
multicultural population, Queen’s theatre also needs such significant steps to
be taken. Moreover, the Signature Theatre has quite a low ticket price of $30
for most of its shows as compare to other theatres. Works of some of the best
contemporary playwrights are performed at the Signature theatre like “Jesus
Hopped the ‘A’ Train,” by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He is also the winner of
Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Between Riverside and Crazy,” and his play with
an unprintable title about a Hat was on Broadway. Martin McDonagh is another
brilliant contemporary playwright. Some
of his key works are “The Cripple of Inishmaan”, “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and
“Hangmen,” a prize-winner in London.
Most of our local community
theaters are avoiding the production of works created by some of the
contemporary playwrights. Due to financial constraints, such superbly reviewed
plays have a short run. On the contrary, theatres have the belief that yesteryear
works having popular titles will attract an audience. However, it’s high time
to open the new modern venues, as it will create a stir amongst the theatre
lovers. Moreover, wider audience will be attracted with the production of new
and challenging material especially younger crowd which is one of the major
requisites for the survival of theatres.