Harlem Stage

Profile

A singular arts organization in one of the city’s more unique venues—a landmark neo-Romanesque castle that once pumped water from the Croton aqueduct to Manhattan—the Harlem Stage has been presenting a rainbow coalition of performers since the early eighties. The group expanded to the Gatehouse from Aaron Davis Hall in 2006, but has maintained popular programs like E-Moves, a dance series for choreographers of color, and SundayWorks, a free play-reading series followed by discussions. The organization’s WaterWorks program commissions site-specific productions that utilize the one-of-a-kind setting: Performances take place amid stained-glass transoms, late-nineteenth-century tiles, and an arch inset with red brick. Befitting a company that prizes diversity, the theater itself can assume many configurations—proscenium, thrust, arena—and seat up to 192 people. — Eric V. Copage