ONLINE ISSUE
no. 5

A Partial Index of the
American Theatre for Poets, Inc.
1961–1965

Venue
East End Theatre
85 East Fourth St.

"What Alan had rented this time was a Ukrainian dance hall on East Fourth Street. "The Ukrainians" owned the building, and they had a dance hall on the first floor, and a bar and club room upstairs, but everybody in the neighborhood referred to the entire building as the Ukrainian Dance Hall. Alan persuaded the owners to rent us the dance hall for a theatre. They readily agreed. Besides the rent, it meant extra business for their bar upstairs. They opened the bar during play intermissions, and before and after the Sunday poetry readings.

The place had a small lobby (not big enough for an art gallery), and a large empty space with a stage at the far end. Folding chairs came with it.

But Alan was obsessed with the plant itself--as he had never been with any of our other spaces. He raised and spent a great deal of money: buying used theatre seats, "real" red velvet theatre curtains, redesigning the stage, and covering the stage floor with hardwood ("for the dancers" he said). he even laid cork under the hardwood so that the floor would have more "spring." And he built the rectangular stage into a "U" so the two sides extended into the audience. He then further strained our budget by buying handblown Steuben lampshades (secondhand) for the theatre walls.

When he was done, the place looked extraordinary. "A jewelbox of theatre," Frank O'Hara told me, "like the best art theatres of Europe."

Not having been to Europe I didn't really have too good an idea of what Frank was talking about, but it gave me a way to explain the place to myself.

I thought I knew what Alan was up to, even if he didn't. Now that Freddie was dead, he was making a theatre for him, the kind of place Freddie had always wanted. Freddie, who had constantly complained about the dance floors he performed on--what they did to his arches, his knees--and who loved smooth hardwood floors laid over cork." -- Diane di Prima. Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years. New York: Viking, 2001.

Membership Form, East End Theatre, 1965
Budget, East End Theatre, 1965
Budget, East End Theatre, 1965
Brief History, American Theatre for Poets, 1965
Brief History, American Theatre for Poets, 1965
Press List, American Theatre for Poets, 1965
Events
February-March 1965
One-Act Plays by American Poets
Cafe Espressivo
Port (A Murder in One Act)
Oklahoma Danger Remark or, A Luncheon Date with the Torpedos of Fu Manchu (A Musical Evocation of Florence Nightingale and her era)
14 February 1965
Valentine's Day Reading
Valentine's Day Reading
15-16 February 1965
Susan Kaufman Dance Series
The Anteater and the Rose
Picadilly Crocodile
Desert Music
21 February 1965
Reading by Herbert Huncke
Selections from Prose Works
22-23 Feb 1965
Lecture Demonstration Number 3
Lecture Demonstration Number Three
25 February 1965
The Theatre of Eternal Music
The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys
28 February 1965
Reading by Helen Adam
San Francisco's Burning
Ballads
1-2 March 1965
Dance This Evening
Discourse in Photosynthesis
Alfa
VVQ
Aves
Vaesoli
Badinage
3 March 1965
Readings by Robert Filliou and Brion Gysin
Whispered Art History
Street Fighting
Permutations and Permuted Portraits
4 March 1965
Requiem for Wagner the Criminal Mayor
Requiem for Wagner the Criminal Mayor
7 March 1965
Readings by Frank Lima and A. B. Spellman
Unidentified Poetry
Unidentified Poetry
8 March 1965
The Fugs!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Fugs
9 March 1965
The Techniques and New Goals of Happenings
The Techniques and New Goals of Happenings
11 March 1965
Reading by Robert Creeley
Unidentified Poetry
14 March 1965
Reading by John Wieners
Unidentified Poetry
15-16 March 1965
Aileen Passloff and Company
Strelitzia
Men's Dance
Belisa in the Garden
April and December
Cypher
Spring 1965
One-Act Play by Frank O'Hara
Awake in Spain
Spring 1965
One-Act Play by Kenneth Koch
Guinevere, or the Death of the Kangaroo
Spring 1965
One-Act Plays by James Schuyler, Kenward Elmslie and Arthur Wiliams
Shopping and Waiting
Unpacking the Black Trunk
The Sideshow
Poets Vaudeville
22-23 March
Elaine Summers and Company
Instant Chance
Film Dance Number One
Country House
Ring Solo
Theatre Piece
28 March 1965
Reading by Gary Snyder
Unidentified Poetry
Spring 1965
One-Act Play by Diane DiPrima
Like (A Romance)
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