Angelina Fiordellisi, the artistic director of the nonprofit Cherry Lane Theater, a Greenwich Village institution since 1924, will step down next year, she said on Tuesday. She said that she plans to sell the building, at 38 Commerce Street, and that constant financial struggles in recent years and the changing nature of the business had led to her decision.
In September, Ms. Fiordellisi announced that the Cherry Lane would not produce plays on its main stage for a year or longer to buy time to cope with a deficit that now stands at $250,000. Ms. Fiordellisi attributed the shortfall to a steep drop in income from government and foundation support, ticket sales and rental fees.
“It’s frightening to me, what’s happened to Off Broadway theater,” said Ms. Fiordellisi, who plans to step down between March and June. “I feel that we can longer do theater for the sake of the art form. We have to adhere to the formula of having a film star in our productions to sell tickets because it’s so financially prohibitive. I don’t want to do theater like that.”
Still, Ms. Fiordellisi said, her tenure at the theater has been “just glorious” because of the chance to “revive the spirit” of the theater and to produce work by playwrights of the caliber of Edward Albee. She has identified strong candidates to succeed her, she said, pending approval by the theater’s board.
Despite its fabled past — the theater was started by a group of artists who were colleagues of Edna St. Vincent Millay and has showcased work by Samuel Beckett and Sam Shepard — it had not staged a play in two years when Ms. Fiordellisi bought it for $1.7 million in 1996 and renovated it for $3 million. She hopes to sell it for $12 million, Ms. Fiordellisi said, adding that she had some interested buyers. The price includes the 179-seat main stage and a 60-seat studio.
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