Joe Cino

Joseph Cino (November 16, 1931 – April 2, 1967), was an Italian-American theatre producer.

The Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino's Caffe Cino in the West Village of Manhattan.

Joe Cino moved from Buffalo to New York City to become a dancer.

In 1958, Cino retired from dancing and rented a storefront at 31 Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village to open a coffeehouse where his friends could socialize.

He and his early customers created their own patois of Italian and English.

He did not intend Caffe Cino to become a theatre, and instead visualized a café where he could host folk music concerts, poetry readings, and art exhibits.

Actor and theatre director Bill Mitchell says he suggested that Cino start producing plays at the Cino.

Dated photographs show that plays were staged at the coffeehouse from at least December 1958.

After 1960, plays were usually directed by Bob Dahdah.

Cino initially saw theatre as simply another kind of event to host.

Compared to painting and writing, theatre is an expensive art form that requires a space and collaborators, and is subject to the scrutiny of church, state, and the press.

The Caffe Cino made its living not from public approval of the work it presented, but from selling food and drink.

No one was paid, except the police who were paid off, reviewers seldom came (and reviews were usually published after a show had closed), and theatre entered the modern era, which the other art forms had entered a hundred years earlier.

Dozens of theaters based on the Cino model began to appear in places making their living other ways: cafes, bars, art galleries, and churches.

To distinguish these theaters from Broadway (large Actors' Equity theatres) and Off-Broadway (smaller Equity theatres), this new theatre world became known as Off-Off-Broadway.

For the first time in history, the stage could be unpopular, an area of primary expression, rebellion, novelty, and a vehicle for social and aesthetic change.

One novelist wrote: "Off-Off-Broadway: The first place in human history where theatre is treated as the equal of the other arts, as a thing responsible and important above popularity ratings, outside monetary concerns, beyond academic and legal restrictions: The first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism."

Caffe Cino's first productions were plays from established playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Jean Giraudoux.

The first original play Cino produced is thought to be James Howard's Flyspray, in the summer of 1960.

Cino became so excited by the audience response and his own response to the plays that he quickly established a weekly schedule for theatrical performances.

He introduced the acts by saying, "It's magic time!"

The first productions at Caffe Cino were done on the café floor.

Eventually, Cino constructed a makeshift 8' x 8' stage from milk cartons and carpet remnants to use for some productions.

The limited space dictated a need for small casts and minimal sets, usually built from scraps Cino found in the streets.

Wilson's four hits in 1961 made him off-off-Broadway's first cult success and proved that there was an audience for new, daring plays.

Although The Madness of Lady Bright is often referred to as the first American play to feature an explicitly gay character, a number of earlier Cino productions also dealt with gay identity, including Wilson's 1961 Now She Dances! Alan Lysander James presented several programs of Oscar Wilde material at the Cino from 1962 through 1965, while director Andy Milligan staged a number of homoerotic productions, including Jean Genet's The Maids and Deathwatch and a dramatization of Tennessee Williams' short story One Arm, which was the first production at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.

After The Madness of Lady Bright, however, the Cino came to be recognized as a venue for plays dealing with explicitly gay themes.

Robert Patrick's The Haunted Host, William M. Hoffman's Good Night, I Love You, Bob Heide's The Bed, and Haal Borske's The Brown Crown all dealt with gay themes.

Ruth Landshoff York, H.M. Koutoukas, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Jeffrey Weiss, Soren Agenoux, and George Birimisa presented plays with gay content at Cino, which would likely have been unacceptable outside of off-off-Broadway at that time.

Foster's Beckettian puppet play, Balls, was so popular that one of the first articles about off-off-Broadway was titled, "Have You Caught 'Balls?'" Wilson's The Madness of Lady Bright (May 1964), about a lonely, aging drag queen, was the Cino's breakthrough hit.

The play was performed over 200 times, with Neil Flanagan in the title role.

Although playwrights Jerry Caruana, Wilson, Claris Nelson, and David Starkweather had each previously presented numerous well-received works at the Caffe Cino, it was the success of The Madness of Lady Bright which convinced Cino to concentrate on works by new playwrights.

Caffe Cino was a friendly social center for gay men at a time when most gay life was restricted to bars and bathhouses.

Cino relied heavily on lighting designer Johnny Dodd, who lit the stage using electricity stolen from the city grid by Cino's lover, electrician Jonathan "Jon" Torrey (died January 5, 1967).

The space created intimacy between the performers and audience, with little room for typical fourth-wall illusionary theatre.

Cino decorated the café with fairy lights, mobiles, glitter, and Chinese lanterns, and covered the walls with memorabilia and personal effects.

Cino seldom read the plays submitted for his consideration.

He was more likely to ask a novice playwright what his astrological sign was.

If he liked the answer, he staged the play.

Many of the young playwrights who premiered their works at Cino's venue, including Doric Wilson (who would later found TOSOS, the first professional gay theatre), William M. Hoffman (who later wrote As Is), Robert Patrick (Kennedy's Children), John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation), Tom Eyen (Dreamgirls), Sam Shepard (True West), Robert Heide (The Bed, filmed by Andy Warhol), Paul Foster (Tom Paine), Jean-Claude van Itallie (America Hurrah), and Lanford Wilson (Burn This); directors Tom O'Horgan (Hair) and Marshall W. Mason (Talley's Folly); and actors such as Al Pacino and Bernadette Peters went on to significant commercial and critical success.