On a wintry night time in New York’s West Village, MIKE makes an off-Broadway debut. In a reside, three-night run of his Tiny Desk efficiency, the Brooklyn-born artist and his Band of the Century commanded the stage at Cherry Lane Theatre, taking audiences into an immersive sonic journey, using traces between hip hop, neo-jazz, funk and gospel with ease. The rapper discovered dwelling on this newfound theatrical aspect, and spectators mirrored that heat again onto him.
Whereas an experimental rap set might not be high of thoughts for the typical off-Broadway-goer, the efficiency embodied the sort of artistic friction that’s outlined Cherry Lane, the now A24-backed downtown staple, since its founding. After buying the house in 2023, the indie powerhouse lastly threw open the enduring, cherry crimson doorways final September, welcoming audiences into a brand new chapter for the century-old theater.
Nestled within the charming, cobblestoned nook of Commerce Avenue and Cherry Lane, the theater, billed because the “Birthplace of Off-Broadway,” wears its historical past proudly. Complimenting its preserved exteriors, the inside particulars maintain a classic sensibility intact. Guests are greeted by a retro concession stand stocked with merch, drinks, cocktails and showtime fares, surrounded by pictures of legends which have handed by means of those self same doorways. Wild Cherry, the art-house supper membership by Frenchette’s cooks, is simply past the foyer, for these searching for an elevated “dinner and a present.”
Cherry Lane Theatre
Cherry Lane Theatre
Cherry Lane Theatre
Below new administration, the theater has added music, movie and comedy reveals to its calendar, alongside its storied slate of theatrical programming. Since its re-opening the house has hosted Sofia Coppola’s curated Sunday movie collection; Spike Lee‘s twenty fifth Hour screening; cozy performances by MIKE, Tame Impala and Lizzy McAlpine; a set by Ramy Youssef; the one-woman Weer; with Clare Barron’s You Received Older, Alia Shawkat’s stage debut, on deck for 2026. All at simply 166 seats, Cherry Lane packs a punch.
For its first official, in-person enterprise, A24 is placing intimacy first – a selection that, whereas aligned with its auteur-esque roots, can really feel at odds with its international scale lately. With the concern of small theater’s flattening commercialization heavy within the air, the transfer hasn’t gone with out its justifiable share of skepticism: What’s a Hollywood heavy hitter doing in off-Broadway’s nook of city?
The studio, as its made clear in current months, isn’t focused on reinventing the wheel, nor are they banking on main monetary return. Quite, the revival reads extra as a cultural growth, and it’s letting the avant-garde spirit of Cherry Lane’s previous and current – and future – converse for itself.
Based by a bunch of downtown bohemians in 1923, the theater has all the time been a by-artists-for-artists counter to the Broadway scene, championing artistic risk-taking, nontraditional storytelling and inventive ambition unburdened by the industrial pressures of mainstream theater. Through the years, that modest stage has hosted a star-studded vary, with Barbra Streisand, Stephen Sondheim, Samuel Beckett, Pablo Picasso, James Dean, John Malkovich, F. Scott Fitzgerald among the many type.
Because it stands in the present day, Cherry Lane goals to maintain this experimental ethos shut at coronary heart. Whereas occasional movie tie-ins might happen, A24’s cinematic involvement has largely taken a backseat position, with heavy resistance to show the theater into an IP playground. As an alternative, as head of programming Dani Rait advised the New York Occasions, the theater is positioned as an impartial house that may breathe by itself, a spot for discovery that may intersect with the studio’s ecosystem with out being outlined by it.
From the stage, to the silver display, again to the stage once more, renewed curiosity in small theaters like Cherry Lane, speaks to a shift in American leisure, and tradition at giant: a spot for us to fulfill a starvation for presence. As business grows ever extra optimized and algorithmic, areas like this quench a want for that means, to wrestle with it and, collectively, within the flesh, make sense of artwork.
As the home empties at Cherry Lane, audiences slip again by means of its shiny crimson doorways, simply as generations of writers, performers and artists have carried out earlier than. When all the pieces is documented, distributed, there’s energy within the fleeting. Whether or not it’s a rap set, experimental play or a movie screening hosted by one of many greats, the theater retains its bets huge on artwork made for the second, works meant to be skilled — you simply need to be there.
