History:

The Lucille Lortel Theatre has been in continuous operation as New York's premiere Off-Broadway Playhouse since 1955. In 1999 Lucille Lortel granted the Lucille Lortel Theatre to the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation, establishing a new booking policy of non-profit productions only. Since that time it has housed productions such as Arthur Kopit's Y2K (Manhattan Theatre Company), Shakespeare's Cymbeline (Theatre for a New Audience) and Romeo and Juliet (TheaterworksUSA), Lee Blessing's Cobb (The Melting Pot Theatre Company & Trigger Street Productions), and Noel Coward's Suite in Two Keys (Mirage Theatre Company). The Theatre has also been host to numerous benefit performances, readings, and meetings such as: a benefit for the AIDS Theatre Project; an informational meeting regarding 9/11 emergency relief by the New York Foundation for the Arts; and a benefit performance of Watch Your Step, a landmines awareness program sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.