La MaMa Looks Inward and Beyond With Its 63rd Season
Drag artist Sasha Velour, “honorary chair” of the La MaMa’s 63rd Season Benefit Party, performs live as part of the benefit. Photo by Lívia Sá, courtesy of the La MaMa Archive.
On Wednesday, October 9, the East Village avant-garde institution, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, held a benefit party celebrating its 63rd season and the renovation of its landmark building at 74 East 4th Street. This season, La MaMa Beyond, marks an increased effort from the company to extend its artistic mission of providing an accessible space for creatives beyond its four walls, increasing community involvement both within the theater through newly established live-streaming capabilities and expanded community outreach measures to change the cultural narrative.
“[We’re] looking at not only the global connections that we can make digitally, but how we can [serve] those communities on a local level who historically haven’t thought that a place like La MaMa could be for them,” says Mia Yoo, Artistic Director at La MaMa.
The benefit hosted a variety of performances, utilizing the new space as a multi-level venue and experimenting with the space’s enhanced live-streaming capabilities—one artist streamed in live from Mexico City, while in-person performances were broadcast throughout the building. Notably, drag artist and honorary benefit chair Sasha Velour presented The Big Reveal Live Show, which debuted at La MaMa in December 2023. “There’s such a rich history of queer artists, in particular, performing at La MaMa, with Divine, and all the way back to the ’60s and underground artists like Ethyl Eichelberger, who are such drag inspirations for me,” Velour says. “It felt like I was getting the torch and getting to continue on this amazing underground New York tradition.”
Views from Sasha Velour’s The Big Reveal Live Show, as performed at the benefit. Photo by Lívia Sá, courtesy of the La MaMa Archive.
Along with the updated data network system, which allows increased continuity in streaming and new media presentation, the renovation expanded the lobby and public spaces, adding a multipurpose space on the third floor and more bathrooms. They also expanded dressing rooms and brought the building up to the current ADA accessibility requirements while preserving its original facades and historic essence. The renovation broke ground in 2018 and was completed in 2023.
The project finally came to fruition after being stalled due to the COVID-19 restrictions, supply chain issues, and price increases. The project, initially valued at $18 million, became close to a $25-million project. This put the theatre over budget—the company was on a $3 million operating budget in 2018 and relied heavily on donor and city funding to get the renovation moving. For Yoo, however, this costly endeavor was an ultimately necessary move for the organization, which had been in “dire need” of repairs prior to the renovation. With these new changes in place, she feels La MaMa can reach new artistic capacities and a more diverse audience.
Yoo also has big hopes for the new streaming system. She hopes to not only enhance audience engagement and provide new ways for artists to realize their visions, but also provide an additional revenue source for the theatre, so that remote audiences can broaden the reach of the theatre in the digital era. “With this digital power, we can build a mesh across the country of like-minded organizations that we can continue to collaborate and get these stories shared, that we could very well help build a global grassroots arts movement across the country and the world,” says Managing Director Mary Fulham.
Partygoers at the La MaMa’s 63rd Season Benefit Party. Photo by Lívia Sá, courtesy of the La MaMa Archive.
“[The] next generation of artists and audiences are already engaging in the world in a different way,” Yoo says. She tells the story of her young daughter first learning what a TV is, and immediately trying to swipe the screen like a phone. “So, what are going to be the new forms of telling stories? How are they going to want to engage with artistic experiences?”
The building, built in 1873, was the first permanent home for La MaMa, originally housed the Aschenbroedel Verein, a social organization for immigrant German and Italian orchestral musicians who couldn’t get work at the Philharmonic. It was home to various German music societies through the turn of the century, before the space was converted into a rental hall for political organizing. For several years, it sat condemned following Robert Moses’s failed plan to create the Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have razed the building along with hundreds of others in the area.
Partygoers watch artist Tareke Ortiz’s live-streamed performance. Photo by Lívia Sá, courtesy of the La MaMa Archive.
In the late ’60s, Ellen Stewart purchased the building. She had been running La MaMA with a D.I.Y. sensibility since 1961, which attracted negative attention from the police due to a lack of proper permits. According to Fulham, Stewart had to move La MaMa’s operations from one space to the next.
Fulham says that when Stewart saw the building’s exterior reminiscent of a bygone time, she knew the space had to be the permanent home for La MaMa. “She renovated the building with the help of artists—when she walked in, there was no roof, no back wall, and only partial side walls. They created two theatres in there; she lived on the top floor,” she says. The building had not received a proper renovation since its miniature facelift in the ’60s.
Those involved with the company concur that this renovation is a physical manifestation of Stewart’s original mission of creating a space where experimental artists could thrive and connect to the community through the mutual exchange of art. “This feels like a moment where art can truly play a role in us finding ways to connect,” Yoo says.
Exterior view of the renovated 74 East 4th Street La MaMa theater venue. Photo courtesy of the La MaMa Archive.
