Seaview, the Tony Award profitable manufacturing firm behind such Broadway exhibits as Stereophonic, Romeo + Juliet, As soon as Upon a Mattress and All In and up to date Off Broadway stagings of Maintain Onto Me Darling and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, has acquired Manhattan’s historic Tony Kiser Theater, previously owned by the Second Stage Theater firm.
The sale, which was efficient January 1, 2025, will see a “refreshing” of the 296-seat Off Broadway venue situated within the metropolis’s midtown Theater District and a rebranding from Tony Kiser Theater to Studio Seaview. Whereas the Off Broadway designation will stay – Broadway venues will need to have not less than 500 seats – the acquisition transforms the area from a non-profit venue right into a industrial theater.
The primary manufacturing at Studio Seaview can be directed by Sam Gold and debut in Spring 2025, to be introduced shortly. Seaview has a longstanding relationship with Gold, having just lately collaborated on Broadway’s An Enemy of the Folks starring Jeremy Robust and Romeo + Juliet starring Equipment Connor and Rachel Zegler.
Constructed as a financial institution in 1927, the constructing was reworked into Second Stage Theater’s efficiency area in 1999 by architect Rem Koolhaas in affiliation with Richard Gluckman. The theater’s distinctive design “can be handled with nice care below Seaview’s stewardship,” Seaview’s announcement famous. Award-winning designer Scott Pask will oversee the preservation of Koolhaas’ signature design, refreshing parts such because the bar and entry foyer to align with Seaview’s imaginative and prescient of “a welcoming, community-driven expertise.”
The theater’s seating capability will stay at 296, with its infrastructure together with rehearsal area, dressing rooms, a fly area, and ample stage gear. These options, the brand new homeowners say, make the venue appropriate for each performs and musicals and permit for expansive design prospects.
In response to Seaview’s announcement, the brand new proprietor “will honor the theater’s wealthy historical past whereas introducing a brand new era of theatergoers to contemporary and daring work.”
“Seaview is thrilled to tackle this thrilling new enterprise,” stated Greg Nobile, Co-Founder and CEO of Seaview. “Seaview has been fortunate sufficient to be working Off Broadway for the reason that firm’s inception. We’re proud to hitch the neighborhood of theater operators and producers to convey extra daring work to town.”
Seaview just lately served because the lead producer of the Off Broadway hits Maintain Onto Me Darling starring Adam Driver, and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea starring Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott. Each productions had been staged on the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan’s West Village.
Nobile continued, “Our strategy to Studio Seaview is one which prioritizes each the inventive course of and the viewers expertise. We would like this area to be a spot the place groundbreaking work can come to life— the place the normal obstacles of the theater are eliminated, and creativity thrives. We’re obsessive about creating an surroundings the place persons are excited to inhabit. We consider the expertise of going to the theater must be simply as distinctive because the work itself, and we’re excited to create that have at Studio Seaview.”
Nate Koch, Seaview’s Chief Working Officer, stated, “We’re proud to proceed the legacy of the Tony Kiser Theatre, and the extraordinary work created there over these previous 25 years below the management of Second Stage Theater by a few of our trade’s most distinctive writers, creatives, performers, and practitioners. This is a chance to deepen our dedication to the renaissance of Off Broadway – to maintain a beloved, historic theater intact whereas increasing our capacity as an organization to showcase distinctive creativity, in an intimate setting, and with out the constraints of a standard Broadway mannequin.”
Second Stage moved out of the Kiser – the title honored a Second Stage donor – in 2024, one of many clearest indicators of the monetary challenges dealing with non-profit theaters within the metropolis and all through the nation within the post-Covid period. Second Stage continues to supply each Broadway exhibits (comparable to the present Cult of Love and the upcoming Goal) and Off Broadway at The Pershing Sq. Signature Middle on forty second Road.
“The liberty of Off Broadway permits us to take inventive dangers and discover new theatrical territory,” stated Nobile. “We’re excited to program the area with exhibits that problem the normal theater mannequin and that may not discover room on a Broadway stage. It is a place the place we will nurture work that excites us and that we consider will resonate with audiences.”
Seaview’s programming on the venue can be scheduled on a show-by-show foundation relatively than adhering to conventional seasons, in keeping with the producer.
Carol Fishman, former Managing Director of Second Stage Theatre and a key determine within the creation of the Tony Kiser Theatre, will be a part of Seaview as Common Supervisor for Studio Seaview.
“I’m energized to hitch Seaview on this important new enterprise that may present sources to visionary artists and can achieve this with the extraordinary freshness and creativeness that characterize Seaview’s productions,” Fishman stated. “The opening of the Tony Kiser Theatre was one of the rewarding experiences of my profession, and I’m thrilled to return to 305 W forty third Road, working alongside Greg Nobile and Nate Koch, to launch Studio Seaview, a theater that can be equally transformative, Off-Broadway and past.”
Seaview was based in 2012 by Nobile and Jana Shea as a New York-based theater, movie, and tv firm. Upcoming Broadway productions this season embrace Good Evening and Good Luck starring George Clooney, and The Final 5 Years starring Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren. London productions embrace Slave Play and My Grasp Builder.
Seaview is represented by realtors David A. Inexperienced, Vice Chairman, Tri-State Retail and Xander Inexperienced, Affiliate for Collier.
