In a vivid illustration of a rapidly changing real estate landscape for theaters in New York, the commercial production company that has brought Kit Connor, Rachel Zegler and George Clooney to Broadway is taking over a centrally located Off Broadway theater vacated by the nonprofit that long produced work there.
Seaview Productions, an increasingly prolific producer of shows on Broadway, has begun leasing the former bank building on the edge of New York’s theater district that for the last 25 years has been a home to one of the city’s leading nonprofits, Second Stage Theater.
The building was previously known as the Tony Kiser Theater, after a Second Stage trustee, and will be renamed Studio Seaview.
Second Stage, citing high costs, moved out at the end of last year. Seaview plans to begin presenting Off Broadway shows there this spring.
The change comes as nonprofits, still struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, are giving up spaces or taking on tenants as they seek to cut costs. At the same time, commercial producers, daunted by the high costs of working on Broadway, are hungrily seeking less expensive places to mount for-profit shows.
The venue now changing hands is in Midtown Manhattan, at the bustling northwest corner of Eighth Avenue and West 43rd Street. The performance space, which has been configured with 296 seats, was notably designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and a New York associate, Richard Gluckman.
Seaview is led by Greg Nobile, 32, a Connecticut native who dropped out of college to pursue a career in producing and who has simultaneously run a series of bars (he currently has the Friki Tiki in Hell’s Kitchen). Nobile founded Seaview in 2012, backed by Jana Shea, the mother of one of his childhood friends; since 2020 the company has been half-owned by Sony Music Masterworks, a division of Sony Music that has been investing in live events.
Seaview, which says it has raised $50 million for its productions since its founding, was a smaller but ambitious player on Broadway before the pandemic — in the 2019-2020 season, it produced a starry pair of monologues called “Sea Wall/A Life,” starring Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal, and the much-discussed “Slave Play,” written by Jeremy O. Harris. The company has become more prolific over the past two years: This season it is producing five Broadway shows, including “Romeo + Juliet,” starring Connor and Zegler, and the forthcoming “Good Night, and Good Luck,” starring Clooney. It also has two shows Off Broadway and two shows in London’s West End. The company has also begun working in film and television.
In recent years Audible, which is owned by Amazon, began leasing the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village; A24, the film studio, purchased the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village; and Netflix assumed control of the Paris Theater in Midtown.
Seaview, whose shows are often talked-about events, believes there is a growing market for starry, short-run, small-space plays in New York, and says that some artists prefer the lower stakes of Off Broadway. “We have found that, especially post-Covid, audience members, stars and creators are hungry for more intimate spaces,” said Nate Koch, the company’s chief operating officer.
The company was among the producers of three profitable Off Broadway revivals — an intimate “Sweeney Todd” in 2017, and two star-driven productions, “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” in 2023, featuring Aubrey Plaza, and “Hold On to Me Darling” last year, starring Adam Driver. On Broadway, the company has had some disastrous flops, like the musical “Lempicka,” as well as some successes, like last year’s revival of “An Enemy of the People” that starred Jeremy Strong, and the play “Stereophonic.” (“Stereophonic” announced last week, days before its limited Broadway run ended and just after settling a copyright lawsuit, that it had recouped its capitalization costs and would both tour and play London.)
On balance, the company is profitable, said Nobile, who is the company’s chief executive.
He said that one of the primary challenges facing independent producers was finding available spaces to present their work, and that leasing a building should give the company more control. “It was time for Seaview to take a step forward,” he said, “and the direction we decided to push the business into was finding ways to take the distribution problem that is inherent to the commercial theater producer’s world and take control of it.”
Seaview will continue to produce on Broadway but will now do more Off Broadway as well. “It’s been a big part of our business over the last couple seasons, and we’ve had a lot of fun doing it,” Nobile said.
The company has retained the scenic designer Scott Pask to refurbish the Off Broadway theater. Pask said his goal was to make the space more intimate and welcoming, with “the warm draw of a lantern.” The first show, Nobile said, will be directed by Sam Gold, who led the revivals of “Romeo + Juliet” and “An Enemy of the People.”
The length of Seaview’s lease is uncertain. The building is owned by Trans World Equities Inc., and Nobile said “the site will likely be developed at some point.” He said the landlord told Seaview it would give at least a year’s notice before the theater company would need to vacate the building.
Next month, Second Stage will begin presenting its Off Broadway work at the Pershing Square Signature Center, a Frank Gehry-designed space on West 42nd Street that is operated by Signature Theater, another prestigious but financially challenged nonprofit. Second Stage also produces on Broadway, primarily at the Helen Hayes Theater, which it owns, and where it is now producing the play “Cult of Love.”
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