Cuiffo. (jonathan baskin)
The theater’s one audience member watches the show. (Jonathan Baskin (2))
Don’t be alarmed by the big black box parked behind Times Square’s TKTS booth, with its dozens of wires and two cans of gasoline.
It’s merely “Theatre for One,” a portable show — starring just one artist who’s performing for just one audience member. Running through May 23, it delivers short, original pieces in a variety of genres: theater, music, poetry, magic and dance.
Set designer Christine Jones, a Tony Award nominee this season for “American Idiot,” devised the concept while ruminating on the relationship between actors and audiences. “I started to wonder what would happen if you take that relationship and distill it down to one on one,” she explains.
Backed by the Times Square Alliance Public Arts Program, the theater will showcase plenty of first-rate talent, including toy pianist Phyllis Chen, who was featured in the off-Broadway production of “Coraline,” as well as award-winning actors Frank Wood and Dallas Roberts — Jones’ significant other.
She describes the red-velvet-lined, 4-by-9-foot structure as a “pretty equal mix between a confession booth and a peep show.”
Inside are all the attributes of a normal-size theater, including computer-
controlled lights and sound. After the viewer sits down, a panel opens to reveal the performer, with the ambient sounds of Times Square leaking through.
As the very first audience member yesterday afternoon, I was treated to a five-minute card trick routine by actor/magician Steve Cuiffo, with a recording of delta bluesman Bukka White’s “Jack O’ Diamonds” providing the appropriate atmosphere. The fact that he was performing just for me added to the coolness factor.
This being Times Square — and the potential for a troublemaker as the audience member — there’s a camera trained on the performer, but not the viewer, so he or she can signal if anything’s amiss.
Anyone who ventures into the box probably isn’t someone who might feel self-conscious at the prospect of a private show.
But as intimate as the show feels, Jones promises that audience members needn’t worry about being too drawn into the action.
“It’s respectfully interactive,” she says. “I want people to feel that they’ve had a unique moment with a unique piece of art.”
Jones hopes that the concept will live on after the Times Square engagement ends, perhaps in the lobby of a theater or another outdoor location.
“I hope someday there’s a theater with 20 one-on-one booths,” she says. “There’s a lot of potential and a lot of permutations as to what this project can be.”
“Theatre for One,” at 46th Street and Broadway, is being presented from 1 to 9 p.m. (with breaks) daily until May 23, weather permitting. Tickets, which are free, are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the venue.