Joe Cino

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Joseph Cino (November 16, 1931 – April 2, 1967), was an

Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino's Caffe Cino in the West Village of Manhattan.

Joe Cino moved from Buffalo to New York City to become a dancer. In 1958, Cino retired from dancing and rented a storefront at 31 Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village to open a coffeehouse where his friends could socialize. He and his early customers created their own patois of Italian and English. He did not intend Caffe Cino to become a theatre, and instead visualized a café where he could host folk music concerts, poetry readings, and art exhibits. Actor and theatre director Bill Mitchell says he suggested that Cino start producing plays at the Cino. Dated photographs show that plays were staged at the coffeehouse from at least December 1958. After 1960, plays were usually directed by Bob Dahdah. Cino initially saw theatre as simply another kind of event to host.

Off-Off-Broadway

Compared to painting and writing, theatre is an expensive art form that requires a space and collaborators, and is subject to the scrutiny of church, state, and the press. The Caffe Cino made its living not from public approval of the work it presented, but from selling food and drink. No one was paid, except the police who were paid off, reviewers seldom came (and reviews were usually published after a show had closed), and theatre entered the modern era, which the other art forms had entered a hundred years earlier. Dozens of theaters based on the Cino model began to appear in places making their living other ways: cafes, bars, art galleries, and churches. To distinguish these theaters from Broadway (large Actors' Equity theatres) and Off-Broadway (smaller Equity theatres), this new theatre world became known as Off-Off-Broadway. For the first time in history, the stage could be unpopular, an area of primary expression, rebellion, novelty, and a vehicle for social and aesthetic change. One novelist wrote: "Off-Off-Broadway: The first place in human history where theatre is treated as the equal of the other arts, as a thing responsible and important above popularity ratings, outside monetary concerns, beyond academic and legal restrictions: The first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism." ^{[citation needed]}

Caffe Cino's first productions were plays from established playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Jean Giraudoux. The first original play Cino produced is thought to be James Howard's Flyspray, in the summer of 1960. Cino became so excited by the audience response and his own response to the plays that he quickly established a weekly schedule for theatrical performances. He introduced the acts by saying, "It's magic time!"^[1]

The first productions at Caffe Cino were done on the café floor. Eventually, Cino constructed a makeshift 8' x 8' stage from milk cartons and carpet remnants to use for some productions. The limited space dictated a need for small casts and minimal sets, usually built from scraps Cino found in the streets. Cino relied heavily on lighting designer

Caffe Cino was a friendly social center for gay men at a time when most

The musical Dames at Sea opened at the Cino in May 1966 for an unprecedented twelve-week run. That production, along with other long runs and revivals of past hits (especially those by Wilson, Eyen, and Heide) and the availability of better facilities in some of the new off-off-Broadway theaters, drove some playwrights away from the Cino. Some regulars, accustomed to avant-garde works such as those of Koutoukas, disliked the commercial Dames at Sea, while the new, mainstream audience attracted by Dames at Sea and Wilson's plays didn't like experimental works, such as a series of plays using comic books as scripts (first conceived by Donald L. Brooks).

Police raids

Throughout Caffe Cino's existence, Joe Cino experienced

Caffe Cino shows received little major press, a notable exception being the

In 1985, scholar Richard Buck and Cino artist

Joe Cino, the son of

Cino became addicted to amphetamines as he struggled to keep up the pace that Caffe Cino demanded. On January 5, 1967, Cino's partner Jon Torrey was electrocuted and died in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Though his death was ruled accidental, insiders claimed that he committed suicide. The event sent Cino into a depressive spiral. He began socializing with members from Andy Warhol's Factory who'd been attracted to the Caffe Cino by the success of Dames at Sea, including Ondine, with whom Cino did a great deal of drugs. Caffe Cino was beginning to suffer. As a commercial enterprise, it was ineligible for the government grants which allowed other experimental theatres to prosper. Joe refused to charge any admission.

On March 31, 1967, Cino hacked his arms and stomach with a kitchen knife. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors announced that he would live. However, three days later on April 3, Jon Torrey's birthday, Cino died. He was age 35. Although friends tried to keep Caffe Cino open, it closed the following year in 1968, succumbing to the strict cabaret laws being enforced by the young councilman Ed Koch.

References

Further reading

• Banes, Sally. Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body. 1993. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
• Bottoms, Stephen J. Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement. 2004. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2007.
• Crespy, David A. Off-Off-Broadway Explosion: How Provocative Playwrights of the 1960s Ignited a New American Theater. New York: Back Stage Books, 2003.
• Dominic, Magie. The Queen of Peace Room. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Lauer University Press, 2002.
• Gordy, Douglas W. "Joseph Cino and the First Off-Off Broadway Theater." In Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History, edited by Robert A. Schanke and Kimberly Bell Marra, 303–323. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
• McDonough, Jimmy. The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan. Chicago: Acappella, 2002.
• Stone, Wendell C. Caffe Cino: The Birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.
• Susoyev, Steve & Birimisa, George. Return to the Caffe Cino. San Francisco, CA: Moving Finger Press, 2006.

External links

• Joe Cino's page on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections