Long Wharf Theatre

History:
Long Wharf Theatre was the creation of Jon Jory and Harlan Kleiman, two Yale alumni who shared the dream of starting a resident professional theatre company in New Haven. Assisted by an avid group of community leaders and patrons of the arts, they made that dream a reality in 1965 when Arthur Miller’s The Crucible opened for a two-week engagement.

Named for the Long Wharf port along New Haven Harbor, the theatre was built in a vacant warehouse space in a busy food terminal, with its Mainstage originally stocked with seats borrowed from a retired movie house. The first year’s budget was $294,000, and the theatre played to more than 30,000 patrons.

Now in its 41st season, Long Wharf is an organization of international renown with a $6.5 million budget and an annual audience exceeding 100,000.

Long Wharf is recognized as a leader in American Theatre, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres.

More than twenty productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or off-Broadway, including Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Down the Garden Paths, Red, Mystery School, Hughie, Broken Glass, American Buffalo, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Quartermaine’s Terms.

Michael Christofer’s The Shadow Box premiered at Long Wharf and earned its author a Pulitzer, and D.L. Coburn was awarded the Prize after his play, The Gin Game, transferred from Long Wharf to Broadway and won multiple Tony Awards. The Changing Room, The Contractor and Streamers also received New York Drama Critics Awards after transferring. Long Wharf has received a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle.

Long Wharf Theatre is dedicated to cultivating audiences that reflect the State of Connecticut and the diversity of its cities as well as its rural and suburban areas, and serving as a forum for the examination of historical and current issues through humanities programming.