Soho Rep Will Return to Its Longtime Theater With Two New Plays

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After a period of uncertainty and turmoil, Soho Rep will return to its longtime home with a new season that includes new works from Aleshea Harris and Jackie Sibblies Drury.

In September, the company abruptly closed its longtime theater at 46 Walker Street because of previously unknown building restrictions that interfered with a production. However, officials at City Hall intervened to help resolve the issues. (“They are a downtown beacon,” Julie Menin, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, said in an interview published in April in The New York Times.) Soho Rep has since successfully completed a $500,000 fund-raising campaign to pay for renovations, which are scheduled to be done by this fall.

The first play in the intimate 70-seat house after the renovations will be the world premiere of Ms. Harris’s “Is God Is,” which will run Feb. 6 through March 11. The play won the 2016 Relentless Award, a prize given in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and also appeared on the 2017 Kilroys list, which honored new plays by women of color. “Is God Is” follows twin sisters on a journey for revenge, and draws from “the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the spaghetti western, hip-hop and Afropunk,” a statement said. Taibi Magar will direct.

On May 29, Ms. Sibblies Drury’s “Fairview” will open, with direction from Sarah Benson, Soho Rep’s artistic director. Ms. Sibblies Drury’s play “We Are Proud to Present…” ran at Soho Rep in 2012.

Additionally, Soho Rep will expand its studio, which commissions and develops new works; at least nine new plays are scheduled to be developed over the next five years.

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