The Flea's short name--like that of its resident theater company, The Bat--was chosen not to represent parasitism, but in reference to an organism that was small in stature and effective in its goals; in this case, to "provide diverse aesthetics in a clean, beautiful, intimate space, and to raise the downtown standard," according to creative producer Lizzie Simon.
These aren't easy goals. After all, downtown theaters don't make money. They just try to go broke as slowly as possible--and Simpson created his theater with a large personal investment that he expected to lose at no less than $150,000 a year. He "only wanted to block the hemorrhage" for enough time, he says, to prove his Tribeca shows were worthy of uptown ticket prices.
Financial trouble is endemic in the downtown scene, at least partly because of the rules imposed by the Actors' Equity union, Simpson and Simon argue. Although the union is necessary for protecting actors from exploitation, it creates an irreversible quandary for small theater owners: "You want to work with union actors, who are highly talented," Simon says, but consistently doing so necessarily means bankruptcy.
Because Equity restricts Off-Off Broadway productions to 16-show runs, $12 ticket sales, and a 99-seat theater capacity, any Equity production amasses losses Simpson estimates to be "at least $7,000 to $15,000 from the very beginning," meaning from rent and salaries before other production costs are even considered. Simpson does still choose to stage Equity shows at the Flea, but only when the envisioned end merits his own financial loss.
The theater's most recent find is Blake Nelson, whose novel, Girl, was made into a major motion picture film. When, about a year ago, Nelson appeared on Simon's radio show, Art Attack (WKCR, 89.9 FM), he had nothing to read but a stack of bitter love poems he'd never recited before. Simon and her other guest, director Simon Hammerstein (grandson of Oscar), sensed Nelson's dramatic potential--and the three envisioned turning Nelson's heartbreak into theater.
The resulting show, Ache, went through a number of incarnations before finding its present form (Hammerstein has since left the project due to artistic differences). The show evolved from a sort of voyeuristic theater into Nelson's 
But if the show makes the audience cringe, that's the sort of risk Simon and Simpson want to take. Simon was actually bothered when, before opening night, Nelson tried to promote his show as a precedented type of performance. He was calling it "the male response to The Vagina Monologues," but Simon urged me to forget the comparison: "The Vagina Monologues make you a more centered being. Ache doesn't empower anybody. This show is not going to make men proud to be men. It allows people an entree into the devastating impact that someone deserting you leaves. But it's also far more honest than anything out there."
The show Ache isn't theater for mere pleasure's sake; it's more like staged pain. But it also helps make the Flea--for slightly more than the cost of a movie--an interesting place to be for the evening.
