What started as a desire to stage a musical production of \u201cAmerican Psycho\u201d has led to Bushwick getting a new cultural venue.<\/p>\n
The Empyrean Club, a theater-cum-restaurant-cum-bar-cum-lounge, is set to open a block away from the House Of Yes and the Jefferson Street L station in 2027.<\/p>\n
The idea began when playwright Max Hunter approached producer Lucas Katler about finding a more intimate theater than those on and off Broadway to revive \u201cAmerican Psycho,\u201d the 2013 musical adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel about investment banker and serial killer Patrick Bateman, whom Christian Bale portrayed in a 2000 film of the same name. The show had a brief Broadway run in 2016 and enjoyed a sold-out revival in London this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really evolved from there,” said Katler, a two-time Tony Award-winner whose credits include \u201cMerrily We Roll Along\u201d and David Byrne and Fatboy Slim\u2019s groundbreaking show-experience \u201cHere Lies Love.”<\/p>\n
\u201dInto why don\u2019t we do something cooler than just [stage] the show, why don\u2019t we build a theater that will not necessarily be a temple to \u2018American Psycho\u2019 but will be vaguely inspired by \u2018American Psycho,\u2019\u201d and then outlast it and have a life of its own, he added.<\/p>\n
Immersive experience producer Jesse Singer was eventually brought on. Together the men got really heady about how to build a venue to ensure overstimulated, tech-addicted youths have the opportunity to share their love for theater.<\/p>\n
They asked each other, \u201cHow do we really preserve this art form that is so important to all of us in a marketplace that is increasingly challenged with competition both live and also on your phones?\u201d said Hunter. They came \u201dto the same realization that things need to change\u201d to keep the art form relevant, Singer added.<\/p>\n
Bushwick \u2014 home of endless young people, myriad large live-music venues, and a burgeoning theater scene \u2014 seemed like the right place for their concept. And so they\u2019ve begun building out 421 Troutman St., a more than 10,000-square-foot space most recently home to the fine frame maker Quebracho<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once complete sometime next year, the venue will include a 299-seat mainstage theater, a sushi restaurant, a bar and multiple lounge spaces.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really our attempt to return to \u2014 even if it’s in an imagined sense, for those of us who are under 40 \u2014 what nightlife was like in New York City in the \u201880s and \u201890s,\u201d Hunter said of Empyrean, which is named for the innermost sanctum of paradise in Dante\u2019s “Inferno.\u201d<\/p>\n The design focus is on intimacy and on proximity to the performance spaces.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re doing everything we can to celebrate the live experience, to give people every excuse that they need to get away from their couches, their screens, et cetera,\u201d said Singer. \u201cThat’s a very important part of the human experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What started as a desire to stage a musical production of \u201cAmerican Psycho\u201d has led to Bushwick getting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-183112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}