The Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab is Now Open at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Photo Courtesy of NYPL

Designed by Rockwell Group, the Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab supports a diverse range of theater makers by making the Library’s incredible archive even more accessible in a state-of-the-art black box space

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center is pleased to announce that its new theater incubator space, the Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab, is now complete and open and accessible to the public. The Library for the Performing Arts, Harvey and Ron Fierstein, and the Theatre Lab’s designer, Rockwell Group and Founder and President David Rockwell, convened at the Library for an opening ceremony, performances, and demonstration of the space on Tuesday, December 17. 

The Theatre Lab opening kicks off the beginning of a yearlong celebration of the Library for the Performing Arts’ 60th anniversary.

Thanks to a donation by Harvey Fierstein, the cultural icon, gay rights activist, Tony Award-winning actor, and playwright, the Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab is inspired in part by the experimental theater scene Harvey experienced in downtown New York, in places like La MaMa, which allowed him the freedom to find his voice. Like those spaces, the Theatre Lab is a creative haven for new and current generations of performers, dancers, actors, producers, and performing arts makers of all kinds to find their voices while accessing the world-renowned archives of the Library for the Performing Arts.

The flexible Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab will be able to provide space for:

• Table readings
• Performance rehearsals with modular acting blocks, mobile work surfaces, a projection screen and high-tech design visualization equipment
• Class visits and professional development
• Screenings and small performances

The Lab also provides free access to the Library for the Performing Arts’ archive of Broadway, Off-Broadway material, including thousands filmed theater performances, making it a unique space unlike anywhere in the world. The Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab will also include access to Fierstein’s mother’s piano. 

“From my earliest days of theater exploration I’ve considered the Library for the Performing Arts’ priceless collection of scripts, scores, programs and video captures an irreplaceable resource of inspiration. My hope is that our theater lab can provide a cocoon where countless artists will develop their dreams into reality so they might one day emerge and take flight. The knowledge that this unique resource will be free to all thrills me endlessly,” said Harvey Fierstein.

Through workshops, fellowships, professional development programming, trainings, and more, the Library for the Performing Arts will make the Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab free and accessible to all types of theater artists, including actors, designers, and directors, so they can have a safe space for risk and artistic exploration.

The opening of the Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab cements the Library’s growing activity as an arts and theater education space. In addition to workshops, class visits, seminars, and educational conferences, the Library has hosted the Across a Crowded Room program since 2014, a free networking community where bookwriters, lyricists, composers, and performers can meet, collaborate, and create a new, short musical theater piece that they perform at the Library. The new Fierstein Theater Lab at the Library solidifies our commitment to continuing arts education, and fostering new generations of artists who can grow with a direct connection to the archives of their predecessors.

“Access—to books, to performing arts history and archives, to space to make and create—underlines everything we do at the Library for the Performing Arts. This new, first of its kind theater incubator and arts education space takes our efforts to make performing arts accessible to more emerging and established artists of all types to a new level. I’m so grateful to Harvey and Ron Fierstein for making this dream a reality,” said Roberta Pereira, Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of the Library for the Performing Arts.

Designed by Rockwell Group and the LAB at Rockwell Group, the 770-square-foot fully

integrated environment features embedded tools and technology called the “Play Wall,” a state-of-the-art digitally integrated storage wall that includes modular acting blocks, mobile work surfaces, a projection screen and high-tech design visualization equipment. Highlighting the Library’s resources, the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive’s thousands of Broadway and Off-Broadway recordings of theater productions from the 1970s to today will be available within the Theatre Lab, providing artists and educators with the ability not only to read the words of playwrights who have come before, as well as interact with video and archival content in creative ways.

“The Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab is a small but mighty space. When we started dreaming about what it could be, we knew we needed to create a super flexible space—but then amp up its dynamism and playfulness with all those Harvey hallmarks that make his work so special. It’s been a real honor to work on this project, and I’m excited to think of the new artists that will grow and enrich their practice from this space,” said David Rockwell, Founder and President, Rockwell Group.

“Over the past decade, the Billy Rose Theatre Division has been building programming to make the Library for the Performing Arts more open and welcoming to practicing and emerging theater artists. This new innovative space will cement these initiatives and give these artists a place to experiment and create in the heart of Lincoln Center,” said Doug Reside, Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division.

About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is dedicated to enhancing access to its rich archives of dance, theater, music, and recorded sound—to amplify all voices and support the creative process. As one of The New York Public Library’s renowned research centers—and one of the world’s largest collections solely focused on the performing arts—the Library’s materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, film screenings and performances. The collection at the Library for the Performing Arts includes upwards of eight million items, notable for their extraordinary range and diversity—from 11th-century music, to 20th-century manuscripts, to contemporary hip-hop dance.