Review - New York Theatre Trailblazer Joe Cino Honored With A Plaque

That happy gentleman on the left is the legendary American playwright Robert Patrick, and what he has in his hands is a long-time dream of his; a plaque to commemorate the life of Joe Cino. Fifty years ago Joe Cino opened the doors to his Caffe Cino, now regarded as the birthplace of both the Off-Off Broadway movement and the American Gay Theatre movement, to playwrights willing to mount productions on his tiny 8' x 8' stage. Among those who walked in were Lanford Wilson, Tom Eyen, Doric Wilson, Sam Shepard, William Hoffman, John Guare, and, of course, Robert Patrick. Cino didn't even read the scripts. Most of the time he would ask the playwright his astrological sign and if he liked the answer an opening night was set. Musical theatre fans know the Cino as the place where Bernadette Peters starred in the original one-act version of Dames At Sea.

The Cino location at 31 Cornelia Street is now the Po Restaurant and Patrick says the owners are happy to display this permanent tribute to a unique New Yorker and theatrical trailblazer.

"It's solid bronze, weighs over eleven pounds, and costs seventy-two dollars to UPS!"

Be sure to take a look at the 59 pages worth of Caffe Cino photographs from Robert Patrick's personal collection right here.

And on April 28th The Greenwich Village Society For Historic Preservation will be sponsoring a discussion with Christine Karatnytsky, Scripts Librarian in The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library, covering the history of The Cino and how it has been remembered as an integral part of Greenwich Village's legacy to the arts. Click here for details.

Photo by John Andruska