Philadelphia Theatre Company Builds New Home

Like this city’s tradition of serving five-star cuisine at hole-in-the-wall BYOBs, our small theater companies, which rent church basements and garages, use folding chairs and even flashlights, are renowned for serving their own kind of top-notch fare. They don’t have patrons to pander to, grants to guild with glory, or exorbitant fees that send them into a tizzy of sure hits. Instead, they produce the kind of cutting-edge work that brings many back, regardless of legroom, air circulation, or other such amenities. Until recently, Philadelphia Theatre Company was one such organization. But now everything’s changed. 

This month, Philadelphia Theatre Company has officially moved out of its rented space at the beloved Plays and Players Theatre on 1714 Delancy Street. The company’s new space is on the Avenue of the Arts between Lombard and Pine, a part of the Symphony House condominiums. “We wanted a new, contemporary space to go with our new, American work,” says Producing Artistic Director Sara Garonzik. She’s had a hand in the design, although it’s obvious she’s offered more like an arm and a leg (heart, brain) by the time she opens the ladies’ bathroom door to show off the slim metal ledge atop the sink—“for purses!”

And then there’s the stage. “We hope to venture into more theatrical work. We now have the capabilities of really doing it. At Plays and Players, scenery would have to fly up or down. Now, with wing space, scenery can really track on,” Garonzik says, as she stands in front of the 365 seats, which are the kind you’d have to pay extra for on an airplane. Plays and Players wasn’t wheelchair accessible and there’s a note of doing penance in the new configuration. There are jumbo elevators, and wide doors for the many-planed entranceways.

Gerald Riesenbach, president of PTC’s board, credits Garonzik with making the new theatre “the jewel box that we wanted it to be.” A theatre company, he explains, doesn’t simply leap into a thing like this—“We’ve been looking for a new home for almost 10 years. This project is not only about a building. But the organization itself had to mature and grow to a place where we could move forward. We’ve been adding people to our board in particular areas of expertise, and we’ve done this cautiously and carefully and prudently.”

Money, of course, is fundamental.

The city has given PTC a $3 million grant, and Governor Ed Rendell has given a the company an additional $5 million. And then there are the theater’s patrons, the Roberts – the space is named the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, a clue to how much they might have helped.

So money is fundamental—and with that recognition comes a certain fear.

When asked about the relationship between grant cash and choosing pat crowd-pleasers, Garonzik seems aware of the issue. “That’s the fear with all of us. Your operational costs go up here. You become owners and all that that entails. You want to have a healthy balance of risk and you don’t want to go out of business. It’s finding the right context for risk-taking,” she says, with thought-over firmness. “We need to bring what’s happening in American theater to Philadelphia, That’s our job. That’s what we’ll do,” She concludes.

It does seem, indeed, that there will be plenty of chances for risk taking, particularly considering the inclusion of Second Stage, a black box space that will be used for more experimental work and as a venue for smaller theater companies. As for PTC’s main stage season, that, in some ways, is the biggest news of all. The season will close with Bill Irwin, lately acclaimed for his Broadway appearance in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” starring in the premiere of his own one-man show, “The Happiness Lecture.” There’s also the area premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Tony Award-winning “M. Butterfly” and the Philadelphia premiere of Wendy Wasserstein’s “Third.”

The first show of Philadelphia Theatre Company’s new season, the new building, which is full of air and light, accessibility and space, is a Terence McNally world premiere, featuring Kathy Bates who makes her return to the stage after twenty years. “Unusual Acts of Devotion” is set on the roof of a Manhattan apartment. But in actuality, it will be in Philadelphia.

 Caren Beilin lives in Philadelphia.