Blue Heron Arts Center Doors Closed in December 2005

On December 30, 2005, the Blue Heron Arts Center closed its doors. The seven-year old space, installed in an abandoned health club in 1998, hosted more than two hundred theater companies and innumerable individual artists as it flourished at 123 East 24th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues). From its opening season, the Center provided a warm and welcoming environment for memorable productions in the larger Mainstage and aptly named Studio Theater. The lobby and entranceway also served as an art gallery curated by Patrick Christiano. Offices and three rehearsal spaces were located on a lower level.

Among the well-known performers and personalities who worked at Blue Heron Arts Center were Austin Pendleton, who directed Tony Vellela's Admissions; Annabella Sciorra, Fisher Stevens, and Phyllis Newman who joined forces for the Naked Angels' production of Shyster by Bryan Golubuff; Susannah York who performed her The Loves of Shakespeare's Women; and Mark Jacoby playing the title role in Rockwell, a musical based on the life of painter Norman Rockwell, which also featured Jane Summerhays, Joel Blum, and Stephanie Pope. The one-man show, I Love Paris, in which an actor (Kevin Shinick) portrayed Paris Hilton (he wasn't in drag!) played for a year (July 2004 to July 2005) on Monday nights in the Studio Theatre.

Theater by the Blind made its home at the Blue Heron for many productions while Urban Stages and the Abingdon Theatre used the spaces for several shows before finding or building their own facilities. Well-established off-off Broadway companies worked side by side with newer voices to make the Center a vibrant part of the cultural life of the midtown east area incorporating Murray Hill, Gramercy Park and Flatiron Districts. Among the many other companies that called the Blue Heron a temporary home were the following award-winning and nominated companies: The Rude Mechanicals Theater Company (playwright Will Eno won the 2004 Newsday Oppy Award for The Flu Season presented at the Blue Heron); Ma-Yi Theater Company; Willow Cabin Theatre Company; and Edge Theater Company. David Korins won the 2004 American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award for the Edge's production of Adam Rapp's Blackbird. The December 2005 issue of American Theatre magazine features photos (page 31) of the Studio Theater empty and with Korin's transformational Canal Street tenement design that won him the Hewes design award.

Blue Heron Theatre, the parent organization of the Center (Blue Heron Theatre was founded in 1987), continued the work it had established as a "thinking person's theatre" — an eclectic mix of classics, revivals, and new works that challenged the emotions and intellect of its audiences. During its time at the Center three Blue Heron plays were nominated for Audelco Awards for excellence in Black Theatre: Harlem Duet by Djanet Sears; A Prophet Among Them by Wesley Brown; and Bee-Luther-Hatchee by Thomas Gibbons. In his review of Medal of Honor Rag (The New York Times 2/1/01) Lawrence Van Gelder wrote: "Tom Cole's drama, playing in a revival by the Blue Heron Theatre in a tiny, intimate house in its center at 123 East 24th Street, retains its relevance, its power, its tortured compassion." Then just this past November the company had one of its biggest critical and audience hits with R.L. Lane's adaptation of Bartleby the Scrivener. Phoebe Hoban reviewing for The New York Times (11/9/05) started off her review: "Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville's exquisitely existential tale of 19th-century Wall Street, has been beautifully brought to life at the Blue Heron Arts Center. From the set, which looks like a Victorian illustration complete with desks with inkpots and plumes, to the characters, dressed in antic black and white reminiscent, say, of a Phiz drawing for a Dickens novel, this rendition of Bartleby is a gem!"

Ardelle Striker, Artistic Director of Blue Heron Theatre and person responsible for the day-to-day running of the Center, felt it was the time to move on. Striker says: "Faced with a significant rent increase I knew it was the right time in my life and the company's life to devote our energies to just producing and no longer being a landlord. We plan to produce Blue Heron's next show—in late spring—in another space in Manhattan. I'm also excited about the fact that there has been significant talk about a possible transfer of Bartleby the Scrivener to an Off-Broadway contract."