Children's Theater Will Take Its Final Bows on White St. in Tribeca
Since moving to 52 White Street in 2005, the theater has entertained 70,000 children at 35 different productions. The show will go on this fall, but in a space yet to be determined. Chris Alonzo, the managing director, said he hopes that space will be in Tribeca, but the theater is considering venues both in and out of the neighborhood.
“Our first priority is to stay in Tribeca, but if a better opportunity opens in Midtown, we have to go where we think the company can do what it needs to do,” Alonzo said, declining to publicly announce the venues that are under consideration.
Alonzo said the theater was “not a great fit” for the building, a co-op where the residents upstairs were the landlords. The theater will be replaced by a jewelry store, he said.
“Mostly they were unprepared for the amount of noise coming from beneath them,” Alonzo said. “We tried to mitigate it, but the screaming kids continued to be an issue.”
Last year, the co-op agreed to give the theater a one-year extension on its lease, enough time to finally pay off a loan for the extensive build-out from raw space. “They were as accommodating as they could be,” Alonzo said.
“I loved everything about this neighborhood,” he added, recalling how local businesses made the theater staff feel at home. Among them, South’s restaurant donated to the theater’s fundraisers, Saluggi’s provided discounts on its pizza, and the Balloon Saloon regularly provided the inflatable goods.
But the final act is yet to come. The theater is about to commence its last—and possibly most challenging—production on White Street. “The Complete Works of the Brothers Grimm (Abridged),” written and staged by artistic director Bruce Merrill, is an attempt to perform the more than 200 Grimm stories in less than an hour—and with just three actors. Performances begin Saturday, April 23 and run through May 30.
And after that?
“I hope we can find something with this same sense of community,” said Alonzo. “But I really doubt it.”












By Carl Glassman