NYTE History & Achievements
NYTE's Most Recent Accomplishments
March 2009: Marked 10 years of publishing the Plays
and Playwrights series with numerous events. May 2009:
Developed and implemented nytheatrenow feature to enable finding today's
"now playing". Also a version for the iPhone. July 2009:
nytheatre.com one of 3 winners of Microsoft/Tech Soup
Show Your Impact Award.
The very beginning
October 1996: Martin Denton takes an Internet class
and builds his first website, dedicated to his number one passion, the
theatre. February 1997: Martin's Guide to New York
Theatre is officially launched on the Internet including Broadway and
some off-Broadway listings, reviews of about a dozen Broadway shows,
coming attractions, and theatre guides, and the first email newsletter
is sent out to six subscribers. We've done one every week ever since.
July 1997: Martin's Guide to New York Theatre is
renamed nytheatre.com.
Incorporation as NYTE
July 1999: The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., is
founded by Martin Denton (Executive Director) and Rochelle Denton
(Managing Director), and quickly attains 501(c)(3) tax exempt status
from the IRS.
NYTE becomes a publisher
October 1999: Publish Emerging Playwrights (PEP)
initiative is born when we publish Plays and Playwrights for the New
Millennium, containing eight plays from off-off-Broadway by
emerging playwrights. Within two years, four of these plays receive
productions outside NYC. This continued as an annual volume, published
in February of each year and is noted by the Library of Congress as an
authentic series.
Years of growth
September 2001: In wake of the WTC attack, NYTE is
evacuated from its office for eight days. nytheatre.com coverage
continues and includes information about schedule changes,
cancellations, benefits, and special events. January 2002:
NYTE receives its first government grant, from the New York State
Council on the Arts. August 2002: nytheatre.com becomes
the first media outlet to review every show in the New York
International Fringe Festival, publishing 183 reviews by 62 reviewers in
less than two weeks. This complete coverage continues each year.
September 2003:'nytheatre.com receives a special OOBR Award for
"sustained achievement off-off-Broadway." June 2004:
The implementation of an automated database leads to even greater
coverage of New York theatre. July 2004: nytheatre
Beyond Manhattan is launched, leading to complete coverage of theatre in
the other boroughs of New York City. September 2004: In
addition to reviewing all of the shows in FringeNYC, nytheatre.com
concentrates on promoting the many festivals all over the city. This,
also, continues each year.
Bigger and better
March 2005: New enhancements added to nytheatre.com
to make information retrieval simple and quick. June 2005:
Developed and distributed nytheatre.com Summer Theatre Festival Guide
Booklet. February 2006: A new version of nytheatre.com
fully compliant with all rules for accessibility on the web.
April 2006: Hosted the first ever indie theatre convocation
bringing together more than 100 nonprofit companies for a common goal.
June 2006: First podcasts produced and the launch of
nytheatrecast.com as the
place on the web to publicize and promote this series. February
2007: Launched shop.nyte as
a secure encrypted website that allows readers to use their credit cards
to purchase our publications, take advantage of special offers for our
books, and support NYTE with their donations. May 2007:
Launch the new version of
indietheater.org website with listings and links for over 100
nonprofit theatre companies. June 2007: Add interactive
maps to each theatre venue. July 2007: Begin promotion
of the new mobile.nytheatre.com
as an easy means of getting theatre news while on the go via smart
phones. August 2007:
Plays and Playwrights blog
launched to promote and discuss NYTE small press.
And NYTE continues to grow
April 2008: Launched
NYTE Small Press website as
a place to learn more about NYTE's publishing program, the playwrights,
and a full online catalog offering simple ordering information.
May 2008: Martin Denton receives
OTTY award from Our Town local newspaper as part of the Culture Club
for his "passion for the stage" where his "love of theater found a life
online". July 2008: NYTE convenes the
2nd Indie Theater Convocation to an
overflowing crowd of over 165. The purpose was to bring the Indie
community together once again to update on advances since the 1st
convocation and to begin work on new initiatives to benefit the
community. September 2008: The
2008 Stewardship Award for significant
contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community through service, support
and leadership was presented by Kirk Wood Bromley to The New York
Theatre Experience / Martin & Rochelle Denton (awarded by The New York
Innovative Theatre). October 2008: Noted in the NY
Times Travel Section on Oct. 5 � "there is a comprehensive discount page
on nytheatre.com that also
mentions rush tickets, which are last-minute bargains often restricted
to students with ID." and "Since the shows' runs are short and attract
less press attention, a couple of Web sites can help you sort through
the mess. Indietheater.org
has thorough, impressively up-to-date and easy-to-read listings with
links to learn more about each." November 2008:
Redesigned the nytheatre i blog into The Good News Initiative presenting
stories from the world of indie theater that make us happy.
December 2008: Began work on Indie Theater Now? on Manhattan
Access television.
Outreach and some interesting stats
Over the years Martin has participated in dozens and dozens of
workshops and panels with groups such as Algonquin Productions, The
Dish, Drama League, among many more. He has hosted talkbacks after
various performances at Barrow Street Theatre and T. Schreiber Studio,
to name a few. He has been an invited guest lecturer at various classes
at NYU.
Since the 21st century began, nytheatre.com has reviewed
5,941 productions*, and has had 52,116,477 page hits*.
With the publication of Plays and Playwrights 2009,
NYTE has published 136 new plays by 144 emerging playwrights.
*Statistics for 2000-2008.