Potomac Theatre Project is an Off-Broadway powerhouse of veteran and emerging talent creating socially and politically acute theatre for the 21st century. In its 3 1/2 decades, the voices of PTP’s writers have addressed the necessity and difficulty of art, homelessness, censorship, pornography, AIDS, totalitarianism, apartheid and gender wars—always in passionate, deeply human terms. Playwrights whose work is often seen on the company’s stages include Howard Barker, Caryl Churchill, Harold Pinter and Neal Bell; recent seasons included Vaclav Havel and Bertolt Brecht.
PTP offers an annual five-week repertory season encompassing 2-3 full productions, readings and a variety of complementary events.
The company was founded in 1987 by Co-Artistic Directors Cheryl Faraone, Richard Romagnoli, and Jim Petosa—three theatre visionaries determined to establish a dynamic and provocative company that would also provide a bridge to professional theatre for aspiring young students. That same year, Faraone and Romagnoli joined the faculty at Middlebury College, where the work of the company was immediately embraced and supported. Comprised of New York professionals along with Middlebury College students and recent grads, PTP/NYC convenes every summer on Middlebury’s campus to begin its rehearsal process before moving to New York for the five-week season.
The collaboration between the company and Middlebury remains the only such link between a liberal arts college and a professional theatre in the country.
Alex Draper, currently Associate Artistic Director, appeared in the first two seasons as a student and has returned many times since as an Equity actor.
From 1987-2006, as Potomac Theatre Project in DC and Maryland, the company produced 75 main stage productions along with numerous new play readings and late night experimental productions. In 2007, the company relocated to New York and became PTP/NYC.