An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in Manhattan in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer than 100. An "off-Broadway production" is a production of a play, musical, or revue that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts; some shows. Referring to the location of a venue and its productions on a street intersecting Broadway in Manhattan's Theater District, the hub of the theatre industry in New York, the term became defined by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers as a professional venue in Manhattan with a seating capacity between 100 and 499 or a specific production that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. Regardless of the size of the venue, a theatre was considered a Broadway house if it was within the "Broadway Box", extending from 40th north to 54th Street and from Sixth Avenue west to Eighth Avenue, including Times Square and West 42nd Street.
This change to the contractual definition of "off-Broadway" benefited theatres satisfying the 499-seat criterion because of the lower minimum required salary for Actors' Equity performers at Off-Broadway theatres as compared with the salary requirements of the union for Broadway theatres. The adoption of the 499-seat criterion occurred after a one-day strike in January 1974. Examples of off-Broadway theatres within the Broadway Box are the Laura Pels Theatre and The Theater Center; the off-Broadway movement started in the 1950s as a reaction to the perceived commercialism of Broadway and provided less expensive venues for shows that have employed many future Broadway artists. An early success was Circle in the Square Theatre's 1952 production of Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams. According to theatre historians Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik, Off-Broadway offered a new outlet for "poets, actors and designers.... The first great Off-Broadway musical was the 1954 revival" of The Threepenny Opera, which proved that off-Broadway productions could be financially successful.
Theatre Row, on West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues in Manhattan, is a concentration of off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theatres. It was developed in the mid-1970s and modernized in 2002. Many off-Broadway shows have had subsequent runs on Broadway, including such successful musicals as Hair, Little Shop of Horrors, Sunday in the Park with George, Grey Gardens, Avenue Q, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Rock of Ages, In the Heights, Spring Awakening, Next to Normal and the Angry Inch, Fun Home and Dear Evan Hansen. In particular, two that became Broadway hits, Grease and A Chorus Line, encouraged other producers to premiere their shows off-Broadway. Plays that have moved from off-Broadway houses to Broadway include Doubt, I Am My Own Wife, Bridge & Tunnel, The Normal Heart, Coastal Disturbances. Other productions, such as Stomp, Blue Man Group, Altar Boyz, Perfect Crime, Forbidden Broadway, Naked Boys Singing, Bat Boy: The Musical, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change have had runs of many years off-Broadway, never moving to Broadway.
The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical in theatre history, spent its original 42-year run off-Broadway and began another long off-Broadway run in 2006. Off-Broadway shows and creative staff are eligible for the following awards: the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Obie Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Drama League Award. Although off-Broadway shows are not eligible for Tony Awards, an exception was made in 1956, when Lotte Lenya won Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for the off-Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera. Capacity is based on the capacity given for the respective theatre at the Internet Off-Broadway Database. Little Theatre Movement Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain Internet Off-Broadway Database The League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers
Frank Mertens, is a German former musician. He is a former member of the German synth-pop group Alphaville, he is known for playing the melody lines on keyboards. Personality wise, he was a quiet person who doesn't like to talk. Shortly after the success of their debut album, he left the band in December 1984, because he had a stress with the public attention. After he left, he founded the group "Lonely Boys" with his girlfriend at the time Matine Lille and Felix Lille, But, in 1987 he disbanded the group and studied economics. In 1991, Mertens moved to Paris where he studied art in order to complete his project and back to Cologne, Germany in 1996 where he works as a plastic artist and lives reclusive. During the same year, he started but never completed a musical project called Maelstrom, a combination of ambient-style music and colorful art in the form of paintings and etheric poetry
James Bryan Wagner, known as Bryan Wagner, was the first Republican since Reconstruction to have been elected to the New Orleans City Council. He filled a vacancy of an unexpired term in District A from May 1980 to April 1982 and a full term until 1986. Wagner was the younger of two sons of the late Wiltz W. Wagner, Sr. and Helen Bell Wagner, who taught English at the University of New Orleans. Helen Wagner graduated from Tulane University, she represented Louisiana as the "Acadian Girl" at the Paris World Exposition of 1931. A parishioner of the Episcopalian Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans, she served on the vestry and altar guild. Wagner's brother, Wiltz Wagner, Jr. of Fairhope, Alabama, is a Ph. D. professor and lung specialist at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile. Wagner attended Isidore Newman School, New Orleans Academy, Tulane University, he operated an insurance agency on Carondelet Street in New Orleans. In years, Wagner became involved in horse racing.
He spent summers in Del Mar, California, to be near the famed racetrack. Wagner won the 2009 National Handicapping Championship Tour, as it was known, qualified twelve times to the National Horseplayers Championship, during which he earned $101,000, he was part of the NHC since its founding in 1999. For two years, he could not qualify because his wife and the mother of their three children, the former Judy White, sat on the board of directors of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. In the nonpartisan blanket primary held on April 5, 1980 in District A, Wagner polled 5,513 votes and went into the May 17 general election against Democrat Florence W. "Flo" Schornstein, who polled 7,037. Five other Democratic candidates received 44.4 percent in the primary. Wagner secured considerable Democratic support and went on to defeat Mrs. Schornstein, 11,900 votes to 11,353 ballots; the position opened. Since Wagner's tenure, only a handful of Republicans have been elected to the New Orleans City Council: Peggy Wilson, an unsuccessful candidate for state insurance commissioner in the 1991 general election, for the U.
S. Senate in 1996, for mayor of New Orleans in the 2006 nonpartisan blanket primary. Suzanne Haik Terrell, council member from 1994 to 2000. S. Senate in 2002 against Mary Landrieu and for state attorney general against Charles Foti in 2003. Jay Batt, with service from 2002 to 2006. Wagner's election to the city council marked a turning point for District A, which did not again elect a Democrat until 2006, with the victory of Shelley Midura, who unseated the last Republican in the seat, Jay Batt. “If it hadn’t been for Bryan Wagner, I’m not sure there would be much of a Republican Party in Orleans Parish,” said Batt, the head of the Orleans Parish Republican Executive Committee. Peggy Wilson, who succeeded Wagner in District A, credited Wagner's support for her having been chosen as his successor: "He was nice to me the whole time that we ran, unusual … He sent me flowers the day after the election when I had lost to him.... He understood politics better than anyone I met.”The electoral success of Wilson and Batt benefited from the Republican leanings of District A. Wagner served on numerous municipal boards and commissions, including the Audubon Commission and the board of the New Orleans Morial Convention Center, named for the first African-American mayor of New Orleans, Democrat Ernest Nathan Morial.
He was said to have worked well with Democrats in developing policy. In 1986, Wagner was named Republican national committeeman for Louisiana to succeed Frank Spooner of Monroe, who stepped down after nine years in the position. Wagner remained active in the state party, he headed the Louisiana delegation to the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, which nominated the McCain-Palin ticket. Spooner was a delegate to the 2008 convention. In 1996, in supporting Bob Dole of Kansas in the unsuccessful race against U. S. President Bill Clinton, Wagner said that the Louisiana GOP should conduct a serious outreach into the black community. In 2008, Wagner served as manager for the successful campaign of Joseph Cao for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district. Cao was subsequently unseated in 2010 by the Democrat Cedric Richmond. Upon Wagner's death at the age of seventy-five, Republican U. S. Senator Bill Cassidy released a statement: "Bryan was a stalwart leader for our party for fifty years, long before Republicans could dream of being elected in Orleans Parish.
He will be sorely missed, his many contributions to the cause will make a difference for years to come. Laura and I extend our heartfelt condolences to Bryan’s wife and the rest of his family.”Wagner's memorial service was held on August 6, 2018 at the chapel at Christ Church, 2919 St. Charles Avenue