SOHO REP IS NOT A BUILDING. SOHO REP HAD A BUILDING…

A wake for Walkerspace and a celebration of life for the thriving future of NYC experimental theater.

Walkerspace (1991-2024), Soho Rep’s 65-seat venue at 46 Walker Street, will be laid to rest this January 2025. An extraordinary vessel for artistic risk and invention, Walkerspace inspired generations of theater makers and lovers with bountiful (Transformative! Tantalizing! Transgressive!) experiences. It was also inaccessible, leaky, prone to electrical outages, and generally crumbling. The space’s caretaker for over 30 years, Soho Rep, invites the community to pay their respects across five days of visitation and wake services, with eulogies delivered by some of the space’s closest companions. Despite this loss of its long-time home, Soho Rep is not a building. Rather, in the words of William Burke, “Soho Rep is an act of faith in the artistic process filled with unrelenting unrealistic optimism”—an artist-centered vision of the world that carries us wherever we go. Join us for a celebration of life that only Soho Rep could throw, filled with wry wit, ridiculous raconteurs, and so much heart—come pay your respects to one of New York City’s last downtown spaces devoted to experimentation, risk, and revelation

Wednesday, January 15 – Friday January 17
Noon-8pm
Open Visitation
Spend time in the space and leave a memory on the walls.
Free, drop in anytime.

Saturday, January 18
10am-10pm
Marathon Wake Service, repeating and evolving over the course of the day.

The culmination of the event: a day-long wake for Walkerspace featuring commissioned eulogies from some of the community including:

David Adjmi (Marie Antoinette)
Fred Basch (Architect)
Jackie Sibblies Drury (Fairview, We Are Proud to Present…)
Lucas Hnath (A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney)
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon, Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!)
Kate Tarker (Montag, Thunderbodies)
Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Public Obscenities)
Amanda Spooner (Production Stage Manager extraordinaire)
Louisa Thompson (Designer for Blasted, Elective Affinities, Samara, and more)
Peter Mills Weiss (while you were partying)

The (subject to change) lineup of veteran artists scheduled to participate in the revolving door eulogy readings include César Alvarez, Jess Barbagallo, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Sheldon Best, Reed Birney, Eboni Booth, Hannah Cabell, Ugo Chukwu, Kelly Copper, David Cote, Helga Davis, Crystal Dickinson, Maria Dizzia, Caleb Eberhardt, Gibson Frazier, Amber Gray, Anne Gridley, Stephanie Roth Haberle, Aleshea Harris, Golam Sarwar Harun, Nina Hellman, Carmen Herlihy, Ben Horner, Marin Ireland, Julia Jarcho, Matthew Jeffers, Hansol Jung, Karen Kandel, Mia Katigbak, Keira Keeley, Sue Jean Kim, Aaron Landsman, Paul Lazar, Mimi Lien, Pavol Liska, Keren Lugo, Matthew Maher, Nadine Malouf, April Matthis, Janelle McDermoth, Steve Mellor, Lizan Mitchell, Gargi Mukherjee, Johanna S. Meyer, Chris Myers, Tim Blake Nelson, Kimie Nishikawa, Deirdre O’Connell, Natalia Payne, Ronald Peet, Lisa Portes, Jakeem Dante Powell, Linda Powell, Roslyn Ruff, Thomas Jay Ryan, David Ryan Smith, Chris Stack, Lester St. Louis, Paul Thureen, Jason Veasey, Merritt Wever, Erin Cressida Wilson, Zoë Winters, and Mary Wiseman.

10:00-11:00am
Breakfast and Mimosas
Help kick off our marathon day!

11:00-3:00pm
ESTATE SALE
Grab a piece of Walkerspace history with posters (designed by Studio Usher) from the last 10+ years of Soho Rep shows available for purchase.

12:30-1:00pm
Cynthia Flowers walks through Soho Rep’s Annual Budget
For anyone who’s ever wanted to understand how a small scrappy theater budgets their season.

6:00-6:30pm
Musical Performance
César Alvarez plays their music from An Octoroon, Futurity, and Washeteria

More surprises throughout the day!

Free, first-come, first-served, come and go as you please.
Livestream will be available.

We warmly invite you to this free event, where we hope to welcome as many members of our community as possible throughout the day. To ensure everyone has a chance to participate, we encourage you to stop by, enjoy a few eulogies, leave a message if you’d like, and then kindly make space for others to join the visitation line and pay their respects.

46 Walker Street (Between Church and Broadway),
NYC, NY 10013