Go inside Studio Seaview, Off-Broadway's newest venue

Owned and operated by award-winning production company Seaview, the space is now presenting its first show, the solo play Angry Alan starring John Krasinski.

Actors constantly transform themselves for roles. The 2025/26 theatre season gets off to an exciting start at an Off-Broadway venue that’s gone through its own dramatic changes. Welcome to the renamed and “refreshed” Studio Seaview at 305 W. 43rd St., run by the award-winning film, TV, and theatre production company Seaview.

“The reopening of this beloved and storied building is so special to all of us at Seaview, and to say it plainly, this project has been a dream come true,” said co-founder and CEO Greg Nobile, whose work as a producer has won him five Tony Awards, most recently for Stereophonic and Merrily We Roll Along in 2024.

Nobile made that comment on June 11 at a ribbon-cutting marking the venue’s new chapter. (The nonprofit company Second Stage operated it as the Tony Kiser Theater from 1999-2024.) The ceremony was held about an hour before Studio Seaview's inaugural show, Angry Alan starring John Krasinski, had its official opening night.

“Off-Broadway has long been a bedrock of development and amplification of the most exciting theatrical work in New York, and we hope that Studio Seaview will be a great addition to the vibrant and thriving landscape,” Nobile said.

He also teased the kind of work audiences can expect to see there: “Stirring, exciting, bold stories on stage.” Studio Seaview is off to a solid start with Angry Alan, a provocative one-man show about masculinity in crisis, written by British author Penelope Skinner and directed by Tony winner Sam Gold.

In an earlier interview with New York Theatre Guide, Gold applauded the prospect of audiences experiencing “a very intimate relationship” with stars on stage at Studio Seaview. Krasinski, who saw several shows in the venue under Second Stage's ownership, is all for the space as a venue to find a “new play, that new voice, that new idea.”

At the ribbon-cutting (it was gold, like elements of the new interior), Seaview COO Nate Koch expanded on the kind of programming on deck. “Our bread and butter will be short-run, star-driven plays much like Angry Alan,” he told New York Theatre Guide.

“We’re talking about doing a fair amount of comedy, possibly some music programming to mix in with the theatre. We’d really like to bring in a diverse group of culture seekers in New York and speak to each of them.”

Koch met Nobile working on an immersive production of the musical Sweeney Todd at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2017. “I like doing weird, outside-the-box, different things,” said Koch. “A big thing we're trying to do here is not reinvent the theatre experience. But we're bringing the lights down a little bit.”

Shows that are “arresting, ethereal, and powerful” get Koch excited, he said. “We're very director- and writer-focused. We’ll see what speaks to writers at a given moment.”

One of the most appealing things about the venue is that every one of the 296 seats is a good one, thanks to the rake and design. “It’s an intimate space, and there are excellent sight lines,” said Koch. “For a one-man show, it feels small and intimate. For a musical, we have a fly system, so it can be small and it can become big. We love that because it allows artists to really not have a predestined scale.”

That was true even before Seaview took over the space, but where the venue really changed is in its lounge area. Addressing the ribbon-cutting attendees, Nobile referred to the new aesthetic as “delicious,” which made Tony-winning scenic designer Scott Pask, who handled the interior renovation, smile. “We were going for warmth,” he told New York Theatre Guide.

The new Bar Petra, which serves curated wines, craft beer, and soft drinks, is surrounded by wallpaper with a golden hue. Pask added bar tables in the walkway from the lounge to the performance space, and other decorative touches reference the building’s 1927 origins as a bank.

“I chose a lot of metallic surfaces for inspiration,” Pask said. “I was like, 'Let's look at coins as our color palette.' I call what we did a refresh. We refreshed it and gave it some tone to warm it up.”

Get Angry Alan tickets through August 3.

Gillian Russo contributed reporting for this story.

Top image credit: The Studio Seaview exterior. (Photo by Joe Dziemianowicz)
Krasinski images credit: John Krasinski in Angry Alan off Broadway. (Photos by Jonny Cournoyer)
Interior images by Gillian Russo