ARENA PLAYERS"Long Island's oldest and finest resident professional theatre."
        In 1972, Arena Players found that home at 296 Route 109 in East Farmingdale.  The 239 seat theatre, 
  known today as Arena Players Main Stage, proved to be an excellent location.  The company now performed
  year-round, offered subscription seasons, and developed an even greater following.  The facility hosted 
  theatre festivals, rock concerts, operas, and numerous plays making their Long Island or World Premieres.  
  Former Playwright-in-Residence Joseph Lizardi (with such hits as The Powder Room and El Macho) paved
  the way for excellent new works by AndrewJohns (Marigold, The Jig-Saw Girl and the Sky-Diver's Widow) 
  whose Return of Herbert Bracewell ran on Broadway; Alan Menken (his first musical, Dear Worthy Editor) who
  went on to write Little Shop Of Horrorsand Beauty and the Beast; and Joseph Dougherty (Murder for Pleasure)
  author of Digby  and My Favorite Year.  The Company then formed the Professional Performing Arts Institute,
  offering theatre training at all levels.  At this time Arena was also recipient of a $100,000 CETA Grant to provide
  an Equity Company which toured Island libraries and high schools with free performances of classic plays by 
  Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller.

         By 1984, Producer DeFeis knew the time had come:  Long Island audiences and Arena Players were ready
  for the area's first live duplex theatre complex. Second Stage opened with a record-breaking run of Christopher 
  Durang's Beyond Therapy and has since received critical praise for True West, Agnes Of God, Extremities, A
  Christmas Carol, Blood Moon, The Lights on Walden Court, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little and Three Tall Women.
  Now the home of Arena's Professional Performing Arts Institute and Children's Theatre, Second Stage has become
  a truly first-rate theatre.

         1988 saw another Arena expansion of its activities with outdoor performances of Shakespeare in the Park.  
  From Jones Beach to Orient Point, thousands of theatre lovers have enjoyed The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, 
  The Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, and Much Ado About Nothing.  In 1996 Shakespeare in the 
  Park moved to the courtyard of the Vanderbilt Mansion in Centerport where Arena also performs children's 
  theatre in the Planetarium.

         Arena is not without its celebrity highlights:  Tony Award winner Brian Dennehy, then unknown, performed
  in Dial M for Murder; Emmy Award winner Edie Falco performed in Crime on Goat Island and As Long As 
  There Are Children; Zubin Mehta came to see son Merwan in A View from the Bridge; Telly Savalas praised
  his niece Aphrodite's performance in The Pilgrims Landed Just Down the Road. And playwright Ira Levin
  came to see his Veronica's Room, as did Tom Eyen his Why Hannah's Skirt Won't Stay Down.

          Arena Players, located in its own Arena Plaza complex in East Farmingdale, has always been a theatre for
  the people, and has survived and continues to thrive under the philosophy that theatre has no racial, social or class 
  distinctions.  Our selection of plays has always provided something for everyone's taste - from the popular to the 
  esoteric, from the classical to the experimental.  In spite of the demise of other theatres, we are proud to have 
  enjoyed over fifty years of vital growth that has taken our productions throughout the length and breadth of Long
  Island from Idlewild Airport Control Tower to Orient Point State Park, and thus has contributed substaintially to
  improving the quality of life for Long Islanders.

              As long as Long Island endures, there will be an...
							          
  Arena Players Repertory Theater Company!
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