Most people call New York “The Big Apple”, although it would be more accurate to call it a nesting doll. Each borough is kind of a small town having its own districts with all the benefits of a successful life. A city within a city. Brooklyn is no exception. Each neighborhood has almost everything for a comfortable life.
One of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods, Williamsburg, along with all the advantages is also famous for its theatrical life of Brooklynites. The Brick Theater is a gem of the borough’s theater life. Find out more at brookly-trend.com.
Art in the industrial building
The Brick, as Brooklynites call it, was founded in 2002. It’s not that easy regarding real estate in New York. Land for the construction of the new buildings costs a lot of money and it’s scarcely enough. The theater founders Michael Gardner and Robert Honeywell chose for the theater an old building with a rich history. In the past, the building was a private garage, yoga studio and auto-body shop. The rough brick walls have created a unique image of the theater with a special sense of place. The Brick Theater is a new name in the world of theatrical life. It is a fresh momentum and new blood. Stereotyped images about a theater don’t work here. Classical plays and velvet chairs are not what The Brick Theater is about.
Extraordinary shows and productions are staged there. It is a haven for extraordinary and off-beat things. A mixture of video games, theater productions, and stage combat in whimsical costumes is what you can see on the stage of the Williamsburg theater.
Artistic directors are the ones who bring a new breath into the life of any theater. In 2019, Theresa Buchheister became one of these people.
Her name is well-known among theatergoers. She is associated with performances, amazing theatrical plays, and, surprisingly, the authorship of almost a hundred audiobooks. She has a unique vision based on combining incompatible things. It was hard to imagine anyone else who would be better suited to be the director of The Brick Theater. Ryan William Downey and Travis Just accompanied Theresa in her leadership.
Everything changed with the new management, including the walls of the theater itself. It underwent state-of-the-art renovations, so they could stage all innovative productions in the future.
Even before the arrival of new directors, The Brick Theater was a pillar for ground-breaking theater in Williamsburg. It was associated with everything innovative. However, the new management decided that the theater needed regular weeks-long productions. Classical theaters show their performances for many months. But such unique theaters as The Brick present only one-night productions.
Performances in medical masks
Many institutions and enterprises had to change their approach to work due to COVID-19. All businesses, if they had such an opportunity, together with their employees went remote. But theaters could not afford such a scheme. In The Brick Theater, the audience went remote. The theater troupe continued to stage productions and perform but in an empty hall. All productions were broadcast live and then they were released on YouTube. Everyone who wanted to watch the show could do it without leaving their home and without exposing themselves and others to the danger of getting sick.
Since its inception, The Brick Theater has presented performances on a variety of topics. There you can see productions about the baby Jesus, Bethlehem and Babylon, and also Christmas-themed and fantastically focused shows about robots and distant plants. There have even been Westerm-style productions. Theater directors continue surprising the audience with a unique combination of different ideas. All the ideas that can’t be staged in classical theaters have found their realization here in Brooklyn at The Brick Theater.
