STUDIO HISTORY

Cherry Lane Studio was inaugurated in September of 1998 and serves as a creative birthing room for new American plays. Angelina Fiordellisi, Founding Artistic Director, envisioned the 60-seat black box theater and it was designed by Samuel Anderson Architects.

CLT Studio benefited from the generosity of producer Carolyn Rossi Copeland, who donated sixty chairs from The Lamb’s Theater, and board member Jack Gindi donated our technical booth, sound and lighting boards. The seating was upgraded and made retractable in 2006 with a generous grant provided by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Prior to its present incarnation, the 1,200-square-foot space housed a restaurant in the 1950s that was built and managed by the Carroad family, who once owned and operated the entire block.  The yard behind their building at 44 Commerce Street served as an outdoor eating area for the restaurant during spring and summer, and the Cherry Lane boiler once served all the properties on this stretch of Commerce Street. The Cherry Lane restaurant, which had a floor dotted with gold-plated fleurs-de-lis, also served as a late-night gay club in the 60s and 70s.

Arnold Warwick, a tenant at 40 Commerce Street since 1950, claims that the Carroad family evicted an old sea captain in order to create a public ante room where our current lobby is located. Kim Hunter’s children, who grew up in the building, tell the story of an excavation next door at 36 Commerce Street in the late 50s that not only revealed an underground river, but also thousands of turtles.

The Cherry Lane Studio is a safe haven for the development of new plays. Our programs allow playwrights to hone their work without the pressure of reviews before sophisticated, thrill-seeking audiences who want to discover the bold new voices of today. David Adjmi, Courtney Baron, Sheila Callaghan, Julia Cho, Bathsheba Doran, Anton Dudley, Sam Forman, Katori Hall, Jakob Holder, Rajiv Joseph, Eliam Kraiem, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Rogelio Martinez, Winter Miller, Deirdre O’Connor, Christopher Shinn, Molly Smith-Metzler, Beau Willimon, Bridgette Wimberly, Anne Washburn, and numerous others have all developed new ideas and plays at the CLT Studio. Our studio- theater programming is a critical component of our mission to build a community to support the playwriting process and the future of American drama.