what we do

new play development

Alleyway’s foremost audience served are playwrights. This season, our long-gestating Alleyworks series continues to grow, focusing on the development of new plays and the artists who create them.

This second year will highlight up to 7 local writers in various stages of their process. Showcase opportunities will happen throughout the year as the projects grow toward a culmination.

The program encourages playwrights, both local and national, with artistic and financial support as they create daring new theatre through collaborative and one-to-one partnerships.

Most readings, workshops, and productions will be open to the public.

playwright rachel bublitz in conversation with director & instigator dan lendzian
playwright terry guest with Jenni werner & chris j handley

education

Alleyway Education offers year-round professional training for adults and teens in playwriting and performance. As Alleyway teaching artists go outside the theatre walls to spend time in Erie County schools, on-site classes bring a community of emerging artists together in our performing arts complex.

Audience engagement connects our patrons to the playwrights whose work they see on the mainstage through group discussions and individual conversations.

In April 2022 and November 2023, we partnered with #ENOUGH: PLAYS TO END GUN VIOLENCE, a national organization for student playwrights to create theatre about this necessary topic. 2024-25 will see Alleyway continue this partnership.

We will continue working with SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Fredonia, and Buffalo State students in experiential programs.

production

Entering year 45, Alleyway’s programming consists of six major productions each season, with additional performances in our smaller cabaret space.

Alleyway presents works by local and national, emerging and established playwrights. Our work was recognized in 2022 on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, as one of only six theatres profiled nationwide.

We partner regularly with theatres across the country, bringing new ideas to WNY and conversely, sharing the theatre created right here in Erie County with the rest of the country.

Alleyway’s Mazumdar New Play Award and National New Play Network Rolling World Premieres launch the Theatre and Erie County onto the national scene. Tony Nominee Alex Brightman's The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers was developed here in September 2023, and opened a commercial run off-Broadway in February 2024. Terry Guest received the David Goldman Fund for New American Plays Award in 2022 for his The Magnolia Ballet, a NNPN RWP. We will produce another RWP penned by Terry in Fall 2025.