The York Theatre

OUR MISSION

“We must protect and nurture our playwrights, composers, lyricists, directors, and players. And that’s exactly what The York Theatre does.

I salute you.”

— Patti LuPone

"I love The York Theatre. They take risks and support new shows and artists."

— Susan Stroman

“Over the years, we've worked at The York, seen their productions and supported their vision. There's nothing in New York like The York!”

— Lynn Ahrens &
Stephen Flaherty

The Company of A Sign of the Times, 2024

This account of the York Theatre's history was generously contributed by Charles Wright.

For Over 55 Years

The York Theatre has played a vital role in New York’s theatrical community, serving for more than half that time as the city’s only company focused entirely on development of new musicals and rediscovery of obscure and overlooked musical-theater gems.

Known for its intimate, imaginative productions and commitment to musical-theater artists, the York has staged more than 980 musical productions, including world, U.S., and regional premieres, and revivals. This work has attracted a loyal audience, yielded commercial transfers, earned nominations and awards (including an Emmy nomination and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards).

Janet Hayes Walker, Harvey Evans, Harry Guardino,
and the Broadway company of Anyone Can Whistle

Janet Hayes Walker, Mary Rodgers Guettel, and Barbara Cook

In the Beginning

The York Theatre was launched in January 1969 by three New Yorkers whose aim was to generate opportunities for themselves and fellow professionals in their home city. The York’s first home (where it stayed for half its first 50 years) was the historic Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The York’s founders were singer/actress Janet Hayes Walker, actor John Newton, and director Stuart Howard. Janet was a classically-trained soprano, with sparkling personality, ingenue good looks, and a will of iron. She became the company’s Founding Artistic Director.

Janet was the link to Heavenly Rest. She was an active member of the congregation; and her husband, Charles Dodsley Walker, was Heavenly Rest’s choir master and organist. Almost 20 years before the York’s inception, Charlie founded a chorus at the church, the Canterbury Choral Society, named for the ancient Anglican cathedral in the south of England (also the denomination’s oldest see). As Janet and Charlie contemplated potential names for a theater troupe at Heavenly Rest, they thought of another venerable cathedral -- the York Minster in northern England. Thus, in 1969, York Players (the company’s initial moniker) joined the Canterbury Choral Society as a mainstay in the artistic life of Heavenly Rest and of cultural activities on the Upper East Side.

Early Days

For 25 years, the York staged an eclectic array of works – classic dramas, boulevard comedies, and occasional new scripts. Accomplished professionals seized opportunities at the York to play roles that weren’t available to them on the commercial stage or in regional theater. Seasoned performers mingled with up-and-comers, many still earning points for membership in the actors’ union.

In a New York Daily News review from that era, Rex Reed remarked upon how, “with limited money and an abundance of talent,” the York manages to “make a miracle of their own.” Highlights of these early days include: Arthur Honegger’s Joan of Ark at the Stake (a co production with Canterbury Choral Society), directed and conducted by Janet and Charlie, respectively, and starring Glenn Close and William Hurt; Molière’s Tartuffe, The School for Wives, and The Miser, in recent translations by American poet Richard Wilbur; and three classic plays to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial—The Contrast by Royall Tyler, Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor, and A Touch of the Poet by Eugene O’Neill.

Musicals

In 1974, Janet met Jim Morgan, a southerner who’d recently graduated from the University of Florida. An accomplished graphic artist, Jim studied theater in college, with a concentration in scenic design. Initially, Janet asked him to create poster art for the York’s upcoming production of Molière’s The School for Wives, but soon employed him to design sets for subsequent production, as well. Jim would become a stalwart of the York staff and, after Janet’s death, the company’s Producing Artistic Director from 1997 - 2024.

Jim and Janet shared a passion for musical theater and, especially, under-appreciated shows. In November 1976, the company mounted its first musical, a revival of Bock and Harnick’s She Loves Me. In the seasons that followed, revivals of underappreciated musicals (generally one a season) became integral to the York’s identity. Prominent on the list of those revivals are two near-cult shows in which Janet had appeared on Broadway--The Golden Apple by Jerome Moross and John Latouche and Anyone Can Whistle by Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents.

During Janet’s years in charge, two of the company’s acclaimed musical productions moved to commercial engagements. Both were first New York City revivals of Sondheim shows--Pacific Overtures (featuring 2025 Tony winner Francis Jue), which transferred to the Promenade Theatre on the Upper West Side in 1984, and Sweeney Todd, which moved to Broadway’s Circle in the Square in 1989. Over the years, numerous elder statespersons from the musical-theater world have been associated with the York, including, for instance, George Abbott, Pat Birch, Jerry Bock, Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, Gretchen Cryer, Nancy Ford, Adolph Green, Larry Grossman, Sheldon Harnick, Tom Jones, Harvey Schmidt, and Joseph Stein.

The Muftis

In 1993, Janet, Charlie and Jim planned a series of staged readings to revisit underappreciated Broadway musicals (though works from London’s West End and other sources were soon added). Charlie suggested Musicals in Mufti as the name for the series. Having been in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Charlie was familiar with the noun “mufti,” derived from Arabic and used by soldiers and government administrators to mean “non-uniform attire” or “civvies.” At The York, “mufti” came to mean not only “in street clothes” but also “without the elaborate trappings of scenic and lighting design.”

Musicals in Mufti received enthusiastic responses from audiences, quickly becoming a popular feature of the York’s regular programming. Under the title Enter Laughing: The Musical, the 2007 Musicals in Mufti reassessment of So Long, 174th Street (a Broadway casualty of 1976 by Stan Daniels and Joseph Stein) became one of the York’s most successful main-stage productions the following year (2008) and was revived to great success in 2019 as part of the celebration of the York’s 50th anniversary.

In the three decades since the Muftis series premiered, the York has presented more than 130 musicals in that format. Shows from the early days of Broadway given the Mufti treatment include Oh, Boy! by Jerome Kern, Guy Bolton, and P.G. Wodehouse (1917); Fifty Million Frenchmen by Cole Porter and Herbert Fields (1929); Jumbo by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Charles MacArthur, and Ben Hecht (1935); Johnny Johnson by Kurt Weill and Paul Green (1936); Knickerbocker Holiday by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson (1938); By Jupiter by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (1942); and Carmen Jones by Georges Bizet and Oscar Hammerstein II (1943). Among post-World War II shows produced in the series are The Day before Spring by Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe (1945); Regina by Marc Blitzstein (1949); New Girl in Town by Bob Merrill and George Abbott (1957); Tenderloin by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, George Abbott, and Jerome Weidman (1960); Milk and Honey by Jerry Herman and Don Appell (1961); Bajour by Walter Marks and Ernest Kinoy (1964); Zorba by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joseph Stein (1968); Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope by Micki Grant (1971); Starting Here, Starting Now by David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr. (1971); Colette Collage by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones (1983); and My Favorite Year by Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens, and Joseph Dougherty (1992).

St. Peter’s at Citicorp

In 1994, a quarter century after its founding, the York relocated from Heavenly Rest to a 178-seat theater in the basement of the Lutheran Church of St. Peter. That church, designed by architects Hugh Stubbins and W. Easley Hamner, is part of the gargantuan office tower at 601 Lexington Avenue, a glass-and-steel landmark of the 1970s, previously known as Citicorp Center. The new location made production far more costly. Resituated in a “real theater,” the company no longer qualified for showcase contracts and no longer had the ready access to volunteers that it enjoyed at Heavenly Rest. And without Heavenly Rest’s capacious undercroft as a workshop, the company had to engage professional scene shops for set construction.

During the quarter century the York was housed at St. Peter’s, the company initiated important new enterprises—a robust developmental reading series; the York Musical Theatre Training Program; a performance series called NEO (new/emerging/outstanding), which showcases emerging musical-theater talent; and the New2NY series (new musicals performed in the stripped-down format of Musicals in Mufti). The company also established the annual Oscar Hammerstein II Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement in musical theater and has honored prominent figures including Stephen Sondheim, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, producer/director Harold Prince, actress/singer Barbara Cook, librettist Peter Stone, Patti LuPone and Bernadette Peters. Noteworthy productions of the St. Peter’s era include the first New York revival of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along; a long-running revival of Maltby and Shire’s Closer than Ever; and engaging new American musicals such as Desperate Measures and Cagney, both of which moved from the York to commercial engagements elsewhere in town.

Pandemic and After

In March 2020, the York (like all theaters in New York City) closed its doors in response to the COVID19 pandemic.

On January 4, 2021, nine months into the pandemic, a water main on the East Side of Manhattan burst and a stew of liquid, silt, mud, and detritus flooded the York’s basement playhouse. The deluge damaged theatrical equipment, leaving costumes, stage properties, office records, and the company’s archives soiled, waterlogged and, in some cases, spoiled. The St. Peter’s space, which the York had occupied for 25 years, had to be cleared and stripped to bare walls before renovation could be contemplated.

To resume in-person performances, the York moved to a beautiful theater in St. Jean Baptiste Church, 150 East 76th Street. This new chapter in the York odyssey makes its history a tale of three churches: Heavenly Rest, St. Peter’s, and St. Jean’s. Now, more than five decades after its founding, the York continues to celebrate the past, present, and future of the American musical under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Joseph Hayward.