The Spartan Theatre
"we like it Rough"
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Who We Are
The Spartan Theatre was founded by a group of actors, writers, and directors in their twenties and thirties who believe in theatre as a live event that tells a story rather than as an occasion to applaud sets and costumes. Of primary importance in such an event is the honest exchange between actors and audience. All other considerations (directorial, design, technical, etc.) must remain secondary to and arise from that relationship.
We focus on providing our audience with an immediate, intimate experience of a play’s story.
To do so, we pursue and cultivate classically trained actors with emotional and intellectual smarts, as well as an irreverent sense of humor. Similarly, we populate our season with timely works of world drama that delight, enlighten, and entertain.
The Spartan’s approach to a production’s physical appearance also remains audience-centered. We use only those design elements that are essential both to suggest the play’s atmosphere and to drive its dramatic action, without denying the actual theater space the audience and actors share. In our experience, this design practice allows more room for the audience members’ individual imaginations, thus engaging them more personally in the play’s story. We want our audiences to play along with us, and they really can only do so in an environment that values people, thoughts, actions, and words more than things: in a production which holds the dynamic above the static.
With an active use of language and "form-follows-function" design, we show you what’s up our sleeves and point out where the wires are so that the play goes straight from our hearts and minds to yours.
Our Audiences
Like the general population of New York City, Spartan audiences are diverse in age and cultural background. One-eighth of our audience attends Spartan performances free of charge through our outreach to senior citizen day-care facilities and to various student organizations.
While we currently produce in Manhattan, we intend to create a home base in Greenpoint, Brooklyn once our reputation is established enough for us to be able to afford such a move. Unfortunately, the bias of the major New York press against reviewing or even listing productions in Brooklyn (that do not occur at BAM) makes it fiscally dangerous for us to produce outside of Manhattan right now. We cannot afford to play to empty houses, and (due to our youth as an organization) we cannot get audiences without press coverage. We think that the repute of Spartan productions will make it financially possible for us to begin performing in Brooklyn within the next three years. Eventually, we would like to become a resident repertory ensemble there.