On a recent night Michael Cates, left, Charlotte Parry and Max Baker socialized at the bar after seeing a show.
Tucked on a landing amid the complex’s three performance spaces, a chrome oasis called E:Bar lets artists and patrons mingle past midnight, bathed in mood lighting as they sip cocktails named after currently running shows. And three times a week the bar adds the kind of entertainment usually reserved for nightclubs. A D.J. spins mixes on Thursdays, for instance, while a live jazz combo plays on Fridays.
59E59 is not the only theater that transforms itself. Some of Off Broadway’s most prominent houses are moving beyond the usual slate of plays, musicals and talkbacks. This month Ars Nova on West 54th Street will not only produce the theatrical rock show “Jollyship the Whiz-Bang” but also continue its regular series of alternative music and comedy acts. Nearby at New World Stages, patrons can often find free acoustic music and poetry readings in a downstairs lounge.
For Peter Tear, the executive producer of 59E59, the impulse comes from Europe, where theaters often give parties at their in-house bars. “The music and the wine list and all of that have been a knee-jerk reaction for me, especially as a Scot,” he said. “I knew something would develop socially if there were a place for people to meet after the show, even for half an hour, rather than having to propel themselves into the snow. I knew they would stay more readily if we had a bit of entertainment.”
If tradition holds, the coming weeks should be especially lively, since the theater is presenting its fifth annual Brits Off Broadway festival of new British plays (through June 29). “Part of the bar’s success is that people are encouraged to feel that they’re always part of it,” Mr. Tear said. “They can have a drink with friends and see actors running about.”
Things were certainly social on a recent Thursday night, when almost 50 people gathered to hear Dan Fortune, a publicist who moonlights as a D.J. Alex Geana, a playwright, had not even seen the show. He was just excited to hear Mr. Fortune’s collection of obscure musical-theater interpretations, like James Brown crooning “September Song.” “You can’t hear this music anywhere else,” he said.
E:Bar also spawns the occasional business deal. Last winter Charles Towers, artistic director of the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Massachusetts, came to 59E59 to direct the science-theme drama “Secret Order.” After the final performance he was introduced to the actress Penny Fuller, and their conversation helped persuade him to cast her in a Merrimack production of Edward Albee’s “Delicate Balance.”
“That bar is important, because it lets you push up against people you might not normally socialize with, which can lead to good things," Mr. Towers said.
But E:Bar does bring headaches. Mr. Tear said that almost all its profits are used to pay musicians, and that even when live music is offered, the space can become a ghost town. “But even when you’re playing to no one, you have to provide it consistently,” he said. “That’s the only way to develop and sustain an audience.”
At the New World Stages theater complex in Midtown, auxiliary programming courts as many audiences as possible. Those not interested in current productions — like the long-running musical “Altar Boyz” or Jackie Mason’s latest solo show, “The Ultimate Jew” — might be enticed by free poetry slams and open-mike nights, or by the regularly rotating art installations in the building’s lower floors.
At a recent Thursday night poetry slam, the poet Mahogany L. Browne, who was the host, said she was glad to be performing for a Midtown crowd. “Poetry almost never gets performed below Harlem or above the Village,” she said.
It’s possible, of course, that presenting such disparate events will dilute the complex’s identity, making it seem like a jack of all arts.
“Our identity is diversity,” said Michael Coco, New World Stages’ director of programming. “Some people might say we’re spreading things too wide, but it means we’re constantly changing.”
He added that lounge programming was never a top priority. “All of these things must come second to the theater,” he said. “It’s always the show that must go on.”
Last year the show could not go on at the Zipper Factory Theater on West 37th Street when a planned production of the William Finn revue “Make Me a Song” fell through, and the building was suddenly vacant. (The musical eventually played at New World Stages.)
To avoid a repeat disaster the Zipper now mounts an eclectic slate of productions with overlapping schedules. In a single night audiences might see contemporary African music or a two-character drama, followed by a sketch comedy show or a drag act. The only constant is the experimental tone, which is augmented by the theater’s unusual design. (Instead of chairs, audience members sit on everything from pillows to seats pulled out of minivans.)
David Brouillard, the Zipper’s producing director, said he was intent on supporting offbeat performers, particularly those who were stranded by the recent closing of East Village rooms like Mo Pitkin’s and Fez. “They’re gutsy people,” he said, “and they deserve a stable place to work.”
Extending the quirky vibe is the Zipper Factory Tavern, a restaurant connected to the theater. Mr. Brouillard said customers are not pressured to buy dinner-and-a-show packages, though they can take drinks into the theater and have their tickets delivered to their table.
Regardless of what is playing onstage or featured on the menu, patrons may be traveling to the Zipper because they trust its sensibility. And branding the experience of an entire building may prove more tenable than gambling on a single show, Mr. Brouillard said, especially at a time when the Off Broadway model has become notoriously shaky.
“If the current method is a boat with leaks in it,” he said, “then you’ve got to get a new boat.”
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