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| Joe Cino | |
|---|---|
| Name | Joe Cino |
| Birth date | 1925 |
| Death date | 1967 |
| Occupation | Theatre producer, club owner |
| Known for | Founder of the Caffe Cino |
| Nationality | American |
Joe Cino Joseph "Joe" Cino was an American theatre producer and club owner who founded the Caffe Cino, a small cafe and theatre space in Greenwich Village that became a crucible for experimental and gay-themed theatre in the late 1950s and 1960s. He provided an informal venue that nurtured emerging playwrights, directors, and actors associated with the Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway movements. Cino's Caffe became linked with avant-garde artists, countercultural publications, and landmark productions that reshaped American theatre aesthetics and LGBTQ+ representation.
Born in 1925, Cino grew up during the interwar period and reached adulthood as the United States engaged in postwar cultural shifts involving New York City, Greenwich Village, and the burgeoning Beat Generation. His early biography intersected with veterans' communities and urban migrations that also shaped contemporaries such as Tennessee Williams, Marsha P. Johnson, Twiggy, and other artists who gravitated to Manhattan. Influences from neighborhoods proximate to Washington Square Park and institutions like Columbia University and New York University framed the milieu in which the Caffe Cino later emerged. Cino's personal networks included patrons and creatives linked to venues such as the Village Vanguard and the Coffeehouse scenes that fostered figures like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Jack Smith (filmmaker), and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
In 1958 Cino opened a small café at 31 Cornelia Street that he named the Caffe Cino, positioning it alongside experimental venues such as The Actor's Studio, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, and the loft-theatre culture of SoHo. The Caffe Cino operated outside commercial Broadway and institutional Off-Broadway circuits like Lincoln Center and the Circle in the Square Theatre, aligning instead with independent spaces fostered by groups such as the Living Theatre and the Open Theatre. The venue became known for staging short plays and one-acts in an intimate setting similar to the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and attracted directors, designers, and actors who also worked with companies like Permanent Theatre and artists affiliated with Judson Church performances. Cino's programming ethos echoed experimental trends linked to figures like Harold Clurman and Joseph Papp, while diverging into more radical personal and queer subject matter.
The Caffe Cino is widely cited as a progenitor of the Off-Off-Broadway movement that later included spaces such as La MaMa, Judson Poets Theatre, and venues in the East Village and Chelsea districts. Cino's informal production model influenced practitioners associated with John Guare, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Harold Pinter, and avant-garde directors like Peter Brook and Richard Foreman. The Caffe proved a proving ground for innovations in staging, dramaturgy, and queer narratives similar to developments championed by Eugene O'Neill Theater Center workshops and regional laboratories such as the Actor's Studio Drama School. Cino's role connected to a wider network that included literary magazines and presses such as The New Yorker, Village Voice, The Paris Review, and avant-garde journals that circulated playwrights' texts and reviews by critics like Clive Barnes and Walter Kerr.
The Caffe Cino presented early works by playwrights who later achieved national prominence, creating links to artists such as Lanford Wilson, Joe Orton, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, Tennessee Williams, Paul Foster, and Dorothy Arzner. Collaborators and performers associated with the space included actors who worked with Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Burstyn, and directors who later engaged with institutions like Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Circle Repertory Company. The programming encompassed productions that intersected with movements exemplified by Grotowski, Bertolt Brecht, and Antonin Artaud, while drawing designers influenced by Martha Graham and composers linked to the New York Philharmonic and experimental music circles. The Caffe also served as a nexus for partnerships with publishers and producers connected to Random House, Faber and Faber, and regional festivals such as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Cino's personal life, marked by relationships and friendships within Greenwich Village's queer community, linked him to contemporaries like Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Paul Goodman, and activists tied to early LGBTQ+ advocacy networks that preceded organizations such as Gay Liberation Front and Mattachine Society. His stewardship of the Caffe influenced a generation of artists who later shaped American theatre institutions including Yale Repertory Theatre, New York Shakespeare Festival, and university programs at Yale School of Drama and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. The space's informal policies on content and casting anticipated later developments in representation found at companies such as Steppenwolf and festivals like Spoleto Festival USA.
After his death in 1967, Cino's impact was commemorated in retrospectives, scholarly works, and theatrical histories that link his name to studies of Off-Off-Broadway, queer theatre history, and experimental performance. Tributes and exhibitions have been mounted by cultural institutions including New York Public Library, Museum of the City of New York, Smithsonian Institution, and theatre archives associated with Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts. His legacy is reflected in awards, memorial productions, and documentaries that reference movements associated with Theatre Communications Group, American Theatre Wing, Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners, and anniversary celebrations hosted by venues like La MaMa and The Public Theater.
Category:American theatre producers Category:LGBT history in New York City