Theater News

Variety Arts Theatre Closes

New York City
Off-Broadway’s Variety Arts Theatre, located 110 Third Avenue, has closed its doors. According to producer Ben Sprecher as quoted in Variety, the lease on the 499-seat theater was not renewed and the owner (110 Third Avenue Corp.) plans to sell the building.

The last theatrical production to play in the venue was the short-lived musical The Joys of Sex. Other recent tenants have included Adult Entertainment, Omnium Gatherum, Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets, the musicals Summer of ’42 and Reefer Madness, and Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Dinner With Friends.

Formerly a movie house, the Variety Arts opened as a legitimate Off-Broadway venue with the 1991 production of Return to the Forbidden Planet.