Tuesday, May 3, 2016

The show will go on with 'Stomp' in the East Village


[Photo in April 2015 by Derek Berg]

In April 2015, the owners of the Orpheum Theater were suing the producers of "Stomp" to prevent the long-running show from leaving its home on Second Avenue between St. Mark's Place and Seventh Street. However, a Manhattan judge ruled that the production is allowed to discontinue its contract and move on to a new theater in Midtown.

But!

According to a report today in the Post:

[A]n arbitrator ruled that the dance/percussion show must stay in its longtime home at the Orpheum Theater after it tried to relocate to a competing playhouse uptown.

The arbitrator also said its producers also should have to cough up a whopping $2.2 million in legal fees for trying to wriggle out of a contract that barred the show from leaving the Orpheum for a competitor, New World Stages.

Stomp began its run at the Orpheum in February 1994.

In October 1995, the cast appeared on an episode of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." You will want to watch this here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Reports: 'Stomp' will be leaving the East Village (21 comments)

Why 'Stomp' might be leaving the East Village after 21 years (25 comments)

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too bad they can't move to midtown, I'd love it if they did. Go away.

Anonymous said...

Id love to know the deal they got back in 94 to make them sign into contract that barred them going to a competitor. I'd assume that it was such a good deal, stomp would have never survived this long to begging with. Which would make sense that the owner sued. Why take the hit, and then watch them leave as the rent starts going up...

But I've no idea what the specifics are. Just a very easy assumption to make. Also, lived near to stomp for a bit - 2 doors down... I've no idea why people are biching abiut them. Aside from the outa town school buses that where there next to never. No issues with stomp, but still haven't seen it... The 90's ended a bit ago...

me said...

Theater shows that I've walked out on: Blue Man Group, CATS, STOMP, and a few off-off-off way-off Broadway and performance shows, an example of which, a one-woman show where the "artist" urinated [live, in front of the audience] on the a painting she just did using her hair as a brush while singing [cringe-worthy] songs, she composed, about growing-up in the Midwest poor, hungry, neglected and may or may not have been sexually abused by a family member and escaping it to make it in NY NY. So, in sum, yes, I hold STOMP in the same category as that.

Anonymous said...

Personally I'd be glad if they left. I used to enjoy going to different shows there & with them being there so long we effectively lose a theatre in the neighborhood. Let 'em go. I'm sure they can get another production for the space & likely charge more money. It's a win-win.

Anonymous said...

When people sue each other only lawyers win.

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or does this show attract very annoying midwestern type assholes who block the whole sidewalk? They are up there with momofuko types who do not understand that people actually have to walk in New York city...
Would like it to close just for this...

Anonymous said...

The Orpheum has been living off of "Stomp" all these years. They have no backup plan, so sue they must.

Anonymous said...

I'm not "bitching" I just don't think the East Village should have tourist attractions like Stomp which draw people who go to Stomp only and don't care or are oblivious to the neighborhood and culture around them.

Sorry if I'd rather see the Orpheum Theater have more than one production and perhaps live music and movies.

Stomp wants to be a Midtown thing, let them go to Midtown. They can take their tourists with them.

Anonymous said...

The whole damn neighborhood is an attraction with food crazed idiots and stupid events. I suppose it could be worse. It could be The Sound Of Music for the rest of our lives with Julie Andrews sjowing up as an understudy every once in awhile.

Anonymous said...

Cmon folks, of all the crap that's moved into this neighborhood since 1994, we've done far far worse than Stomp.

Anonymous said...

12:53pm

Stomp was the beginning of the watering down of EV culture.

The only things of cultural note in the EV are...nothing. Name me one place to hang out in the EV where it's mostly or all artists and other creative types.

Anonymous said...

The arists and "creative types" are all capitalizing on the gentrification. Many of them are partners in high end restaurants, dinner theater, cocktail lounges. We are the dumping ground for everyone, the DiBlasio administration, council members who all take money from the real estate industy and nightlife. Musicians, actors, everyone. Carpetbaggers.

Artists are scattered about NYC. Some artists make a lot of money. In bohemian culture when the rents and food were cheap, people hung out during the week. I liked it better when it was a community of poor hedonists in downtown Manhattan. Of course there is some of this out in Bushwhich/Ridgewood and other areas, but people are still paying rent and the restaurants and real estate industry follows them and pretty fast too.

I think the best we can do is to stop the proliferation of restaurants and high end cocktail lounges which are demolishing everything. Unfortunately the real estate/nightlife sociopaths do control the arts with funding and other forms of manipulation. I think that pushing back againts events, Halloween events that market us worldwide could change things. But people are dumb, narcissistic and won't admit they are wrong. The resistance around here is like 2%. I think we need to support the people who are hanging on.

The reason the East Village is in the state it is in is largely because that's the way people want it. The ones who are claiming to be the saviors of art and culture are actually the ones who have destroyed the area and continue to do so.

JQ LLC said...

@2:18

right on. Especially on the inexplicable interest in condensed middle class and formerly poor neigborhoods you mentioned.

I've been calling these fiends sociopaths for years, It's a not so secret society.

Anonymous said...

Oh God it's you again (2:18pm.) The guy/girl who went ballistic at the idea for a live music venue in the Red Devil Hop space. Go away.

If it weren't for those artists and "creative types" you sneer at and down on from your lofty perch (in your brain) the East Village would be as boring and vanilla as Murray Hill, Yorkville etc. Give it a rest with the villification of people who are not developers.

Hilly Kristal (RIP) and CBGB didn't pave the way for EV gentrification. Neither did Trash & Vaudeville, Sounds, Venus Records, Coney Island High, Pyramid Club, The Sock Man, and many other long gone, gone, and still surviving EV places so put a sock in it - your argument holds no merit.

In fact, I'll double down: this blog doesn't exist without them which means you don't have comments to run your big mouth about the non-gentry.

Yeah "downtown hedonists" - codeword for junkie scumbags and other criminal lowlives. The East Village was sooooo cool when it was a stomping ground for people to just drink, do drugs, rob people for both etc.

Anonymous said...

Where is this Red Devil Hop Space? Never heard of this place.

Anonymous said...

On St.Mark's Place 10:10pm only 2:18pm doesn't want anything artistic or creative opening there because artists and creative types pave the way for the gentrifiers, so let's have NO art or creativity in the EV or anywhere else in this city, right 2:18pm?