Las Vegas is famous for its elaborate Strip productions and the high-end shows at the Smith Center. Our Valley also fosters a thriving grassroots theater scene. But what about all the stuff in the middle?
“Where is the theater that exists everywhere else?” asks Darren Lee Cole, the producing artistic director for New York City’s 200-seat SoHo Playhouse. “Ninety percent of theater is in between the Smith Center and those small, emerging companies.”
The celebrated industry veteran plans to solve that puzzle by bringing off-Broadway theater to Downtown Las Vegas. His organization intends to build an 85,000-square-foot performing arts center in or near the Arts District.
In the meantime, SoHo is working on securing a two-year Downtown pop-up venue, with the goal of going live by the end of 2021. The nonprofit theater is already priming the pump by providing $10,000 in grants to local theater makers and by offering acting workshops. Cole sees those classes as a first step in “spreading our style of theater here.”
If talk of big-city outsiders raises your hackles, Cole says SoHo Playhouse will aim to integrate itself into our culture, rather than annexing us into its world. “It’s really important to let people know that this will be a Las Vegas-based organization,” he says. “We’re going to hire locally. … Our aim is to give as many Las Vegas citizens as possible working theater jobs.”
Cole also sees SoHo Playhouse as a pipeline for Las Vegans to take their talent to a national stage, becoming “a conduit for those artists and their shows to go to New York.”
Why Vegas? It’s the largest U.S. metro area without an off-Broadway theater scene, according to sohoplayhouselv.com. Plus, Cole has personal connections, having tracked the city’s cultural growth since he road-tripped here during the 1970s. He also has a sister and parents living in Southern Nevada. In a bit of kismet, he’s subletting a place in SoHo Lofts, with a bird’s-eye view of Downtown.
Cole lauds the local theater, dance and opera companies, and calls Myron Martin’s work at the Smith Center “heroic.” “Not only are we not afraid of competition, we need it and welcome it,” Cole says. “New York is a hot off-Broadway scene, not because there’s SoHo Playhouse, but because there’s SoHo Playhouse and 200 other awesome theater experiences. Vegas is capable of that … [and] we can fill in a couple of the missing tiles on the mosaic.”
Understanding off-broadway
If Broadway is considered commercial, off-Broadway has a reputation as “authentic.” Or, as SoHo Playhouse’s Darren Lee Cole explains, “It’s a great way to experience real human interaction—one of the last.”
Off-Broadway is often the breeding grounds for future megahits, such as Hamilton, Rent and Little Shop of Horrors. In New York, SoHo Playhouse has become known for embodying the fertile, creative essence of off-Broadway. “We do a very specific style that has become world-famous: hard-hitting, realistic off-Broadway plays … no fluff, no frills,” Cole says.
Cole says SoHo Playhouse will debut in Vegas with a four-show season, comprising the organization’s past greatest hits.
For more information or to sign up for acting workshops, visit sohoplayhouselv.com.
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