garnered six 1998 Tony Awards, including Best Mu-
sical. Ann Reinking directedFosse(pr. 1999), show-
casing the brilliant theatrical innovations of Bob
Fosse. When the musical won the 1999 Tony Award
for Best Musical, the revival of Fosse’sChicagowas
still playing to large and very enthusiastic houses.
Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway The term “Off-
Broadway” refers both to a locale and to a special
type of contract with theatrical labor unions such as
the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA). Most Off-
Broadway theaters are in Greenwich Village and in
East Village and have a small seating capacity rang-
ing from one hundred to five hundred seats, which
obviously restricts income and therefore allows for
reduced salary levels with the AEA. In recognition of
the importance of Off-Broadway theaters, theVillage
Voicenewspaper created the Obie Awards, which in-
clude the same categories as the Tony Awards but
are given to recognize Off-Broadway productions.
There are over 150 theaters in the New York City
area that are defined as Off-Broadway, including the
American Place Theatre, the Astor Place Theater (at
which the Blue Man Group has performed for
years), the Cherry Lane Theatre, the Manhattan
Theatre Club, the Joseph Papp Public Theatre, the
Signature Theatre, and the Vineyard Theatre. It was
at the Vineyard Theatre that Edward Albee pre-
sented hisThree Tall Women(pr. 1991) in 1994, which
won the Pulitzer Prize in drama. The Signature
Theatre Company, founded in 1991, hosts a single
playwright for an entire year, doing both revivals and
new work. During the year, the theater hosted Hor-
ton Foote, who received the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for
The Young Man from Atlanta. The Joseph Papp Public
Theatre features both modern experimental works
and productions of William Shakespeare’s plays,
which are offered free to the public. George Wolf’s
Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk(pr. 1995) and Ar-
thur Miller’sRide Down Mt. Morgan(pr. 1991) both
premiered in the United States at the Public Theatre
before transferring to Broadway.
“Off-Off-Broadway” and “Off-Broadway” are not
distinct in terms of geography but in financial orga-
nization. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are nonprofit
organizations and thus have entirely different and
less demanding contracts with AEA and other theat-
rical unions. Most of the major new playwrights of
the latter half of the twentieth century commenced
Off-Broadway or Off-Off-Broadway. These include
Edward Albee, John Guare, David Henry Hwang,
David Mamet, Terrence McNally, Sam Shepard, and
Wendy Wasserstein. Among the star actors who be-
gan Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway are Col-
leen Dewhurst, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman,
Kevin Klein, and Meryl Streep.
There are more than fifty Off-Off-Broadway the-
aters, among the more important of which are La
MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (E.T.C.), the
Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, and Theater for the
New City. La MaMa E.T.C., whose director, Ellen
Stewart, might be called the originator of Off-Off-
Broadway, produces new playwrights and highly ex-
perimental works such as Ping Chong’s playDeshima
(pr. 1990), which premiered at La MaMa in 1993.
The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre was founded by
Richard Foreman to present works of fundamental
human relations in static and unadorned space.
Since 1968, Foreman has produced over fifty of his
own plays and has received a National Endowment
for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award and a Mac-
Arthur Fellowship. Each year, the Theater for the
New City produces thirty to forty new American
plays, which have included works by Sam Shepard,
Moises Kaufman, and Marie Irene Fornes. The The-
ater for the New City has also presented productions
by the Bread and Puppet Theater and the Mabou
Mimes. In 1996, the Ma-Yi Theatre Company won an
Obie Award for its production of Ralph Peña’s
Flipzoidsat the Theater for the New City, and the New
City’s 1997 production of Gao Xingjian’sBetween Life
and Deathwas the playwright’s only American pro-
duction before he won the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 2000.
In addition to the more traditional Off-Off-
Broadway theaters, there are alternative theaters
such as Women’s One World, devoted to feminist
works such as Deb Margolin’sLesbians Who Kill
(pr. 1992) andOh Wholly Night(pr. 1996), and Here
Arts Center, which produced Eve Ensler’sThe Vagina
Monologues(pr. 1996), a controversial play that pre-
sented frank monologues about female sexuality
and violence against women. Other alternative the-
aters include the Wooster Group, which produces
plays in the Performing Garage on Wooster Street.
Founded by Jill Clayburgh and Spalding Gray, the
Wooster Group is famous for Gray’s autobiographi-
cal monologues, but it also does special full perfor-
mances such asHouse/Lights(pr. 1998), which won
the 1999 Obie Award for Best Production. En GardeThe Nineties in America Theater in the United States 853