TheMetropolitan Playhouse was a resident producing theater inNew York City founded in 1992 by Parsifal's Productions, Inc.
Originally producing in the auditorium of The High School forGraphic Communication Arts on W. 49th Street, the theater relocated to East Fourth Street in Manhattan'sEast Village in 1997 where it presented plays through June 2023. Devoted to presenting plays that explore American culture and history, including seldom-produced, "lost" American plays and new plays about or derived from American history and literature, its best known revivals included threeEulalie Spence one-acts (The Starter, Hot Stuff, and The Hunch),Thunder Rock (play) andShadow of Heroes byRobert Ardrey,On Strivers Row andWalk Hard (play) by Abram Hill, thePulitzer Prize-winningIcebound andThe Detour byOwen Davis,George L. Aiken's adaptation ofUncle Tom's Cabin,Jacob Gordin'sThe Jewish King Lear (in a translation byRuth Gay), the world premiere ofNeith Boyce's adaptation ofH. G. Wells'sThe Sea Lady,The Faith Healer andThe Great Divide byWilliam Vaughn Moody,The Drunkard by W. H. Smith,Inheritors and thePulitzer Prize winningAlison's House by co-founder of TheProvincetown_PlayhouseSusan Glaspell,The Melting Pot byIsrael Zangwill,The City byClyde Fitch,Metamora byJohn Augustus Stone,Sun-Up byLula Vollmer, andThe New York Idea byLangdon Mitchell, and numerous early one-act plays byEugene O'Neill. The company has also staged three 'Living Newspapers' from theFederal Theater Project: Arthur Arent'sPower in 2007,One-Third of a Nation in 2011, andInjunction Granted in 2015.
During the first 15 months of theCOVID-19 pandemic shutdown in New York, the playhouse presented weekly readings online of American plays and short stories, as well as occasional concerts and improvised performance including the work ofZero Boy, theArea 9 Quartet,Amanda Selwyn Dance, all as a part of itsVirtual Playhouse series. Further on-line presentations included fund-raising readings ofThe Moon is Down (play) by John Steinbeck andLove Letters from the Cold War by Joseph Ryan.
Metropolitan Playhouse was awarded anObie grant by theVillage Voice in 2011[1] for, in the words spoken by presenterPatina Miller ″helping us see, theatrically, where we’ve been and where we are.″ The theater also received a Performing Arts award from the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in 2014.
Parsifal's Productions and Metropolitan have been led by Producing Artistic Director Alex Roe since 2001.
In addition to historical American performance, Metropolitan Playhouse also dedicated itself to the exploration and celebration of the neighborhood in which it resided. The annual East Side Stories Festival (alternately known as the East Village Theater Festival) included one or both of the theater's new works series: East Village Chronicles, a collection of new short plays inspired by the history and lore of the East Village, and Alphabet City, a collection of solo performance pieces derived from interviews with neighborhood residents. In addition to these two performance series, East Side Stories featured readings of other plays, gallery presentations by local artists, and panel discussions of issues facing the neighborhood in the past and present.
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