About TFANA
About TFANA
Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, and led by Horowitz and Managing Director Dorothy Ryan, Theatre for a New Audience is a New York City home for Shakespeare and other contemporary playwrights. It performs for audiences of all ages and backgrounds; is devoted to economic access through its New Deal Initiative which offers $20 tickets for age 30 and under and full-time students of any age; and promotes humanities and education programs. TFANA created and runs the largest program to introduce Shakespeare and classic drama in New York City’s public schools; the program has now served more than 140,000 students.
With Shakespeare as its guide, TFANA explores the ever-changing forms of world theatre and builds a dialogue between the language and ideas of Shakespeare and diverse authors, past and present. TFANA builds long-term associations with artists from around the world; supports commissions, translations, artists’ residencies, and developmental workshops with the Merle Debuskey Studio Fund.
TFANA has built long-term associations with artists from around the world. These include F. Murray Abraham, Christopher Akerlind, Arin Arbus, Sarah Benson, Cicely Berry, Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, Michael Boyd, Jonathan Cake, Christian Camargo, Bill Camp, Juliana Canfield, Karin Coonrod, Ron Daniels, Marcus Doshi, Ned Eisenberg, Fiasco Theater, Simon Godwin, Peter Hall, LisaGay Hamilton, Riccardo Hernández, Susan Hilferty, Constance Hoffman, Donald Holder, Kathryn Hunter, Claire van Kampen, Barry Kyle, Harry Lennix, Marcello Magni, Trevor Nunn, Tom Pecinka, Michael Rogers, Thomas Jay Ryan, Mark Rylance, Erica Schmidt, Michael Shannon, Bartlett Sher, Maggie Siff, Paul Sparks, Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal, John Douglas Thompson, Awoye Timpo, Darko Tresnjak, Robert Woodruff, and Evan Yionoulis. The company supports commissions, translations residencies and workshops with the Merle Debuskey Studio Fund and also partners with other Off-Broadway companies such as Soho Rep.
TFANA has produced 35 of Shakespeare’s plays alongside authors such as:
Samuel Beckett
Edward Bond
Alice Childress
Shayok Misha Chowdhury
Jackie Sibblies Drury
Will Eno
Euripides
María Irene Fornés
W.S. Gilbert
Zinnie Harris
Henrik Ibsen
Eugene Ionesco
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Denis Johnson
James de Jongh
Franz Kafka adapted by Colin Teevan
Adrienne Kennedy
Richard Maxwell
Christopher Marlowe
Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
Molière
Richard Nelson
Suzan-Lori Parks
Milcha Sanchez-Scott
Wallace Shawn
August Strindberg
Lope de Vega
Thornton Wilder
Tennessee Williams
TFANA’s productions, including co-productions with other theatres such as Soho Rep., Woolly Mammoth, and Rattlestick, have played Off and on Broadway and toured nationally and internationally.
In 2001, TFANA became the first American theatre company invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company when Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, opened at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon. In 2007, TFANA returned to the RSC for its Complete Works Festival with The Merchant of Venice, featuring F. Murray Abraham as Shylock and directed by Darko Tresnjak.
The Royal Lyceum Theatre of Edinburgh and TFANA have now inaugurated The Shakespeare Exchange, the exchange of two productions in the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In 2024, the Lyceum’s production of Macbeth (an undoing) written and directed by Zinnie Harris played at TFANA and 2025, TFANA’s The Merchant of Venice, starring John Douglas Thompson and directed by Arin Arbus, will play at the Lyceum.
In October 2013, the Theatre opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (PSC), in Brooklyn with the 299-seat uniquely flexible Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage, and the 50-seat Theodore C. Rogers Studio. Designed by celebrated architect Hugh Hardy, Polonsky Shakespeare Center combines an Elizabethan courtyard-style theatre with modern technology. The Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage is a unique performing space that allows artists to arrange the stage and seating in a myriad of different configurations. Polonsky Shakespeare Center is the first theatre built in New York City for Shakespeare and classic drama since the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center in the 1960s. The inaugural production was Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Julie Taymor with Kathryn Hunter as Puck. In 2014, TFANA commissioned Michael Boyd to adapt Marlowe’s two-part drama Tamburlaine the Great into one three-hour play which premiered at PSC in 2014 featuring John Douglas Thompson in the title role. In 2018, the RSC produced Boyd’s adaptation.
TFANA honors the Lenape and Canarsie People on whose ancestral homeland PSC is built.
1979
TFANA is founded by Jeffrey Horowitz
2000
The Green Bird, directed by Julie Taymor on Broadway at the Cort Theatre
2001
Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher. First American theatre company invited to perform Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company
2013
opened the polonsky shakespeare center
35
Of shakespeare’s 38 plays produced
“Theatre for a New Audience is one of America’s most admirable and exciting theatre companies…some of THE BEST-ACTED AND -DIRECTED WORK to be found on the American stages, engaging with the canon of world dramatic literature in a vigorous way.”
― Tony Kushner
Polonsky Shakespeare Center
Leadership
Staff
Awards & Citations
All photos by Gerry Goodstein.
Photo 1: Sebastian Roché and Myriam Cyr, The Green Bird.
Photo 2: Juliet Rylance and John Douglas Thompson, Othello.
Photo 3: Sebastian Roché, Miriam Healy-Louie, and Jean Loup Wolfman, Titus Andronicus.
Photo 4: Cherise Boothe and LisaGay Hamilton, Ohio State Murders.