Polly Hogan and Ron Ritchell founded The Lyric Stage Company in 1974. They produced new work by American playwrights and also enjoyed producing little known plays by established authors. Their first permanent space was a 100-seat black box theatre above a hardware shop. Early on in their development they made a commitment to follow Equity rules for actor/stage manager hiring.

In the 80s the company expanded and moved to a new space with a 250 seat theatre located above the YWCA in downtown Boston near Copley Square. Their artistic director, Spiro Veloudos hopes to continue to expand the theatre. Spiro Veloudos has been artistic director since 1998. His productions of Lost In Yonkers, Assassins and Never The Sinner all won Elliot Norton Awards. He has managed to draw a more solid base of patrons and theatregoers but some feel that the season has become less ambitious. 10 years ago doing a play by Mamet or other “new” playwrights was rather daring, but now they are staples of straight play production. Fortunately, Veloudos has kept at least one new work in the season each year. As the theatre continues to grow it will be interesting to see if they are able to balance popularity with artistic inventiveness.


lyricSV@aol.com
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA, 02116

(617)-437-8819
(617) 536-2830 (box office)
(617) 437-7172 (fax)

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