One Saturday afternoon, my husband and I knocked on the door and then entered what appeared to be someone's living room. Sitting in the corner with a blanket tucked around her, watching a football game was 96 year old, Edith O'Hara, who warmly welcomed us in. First, she walked us across the room to see the small theater where she has been involved in staging productions for four decades and then invited us to sit down so that she could share her story with us. Edith has been living on the third floor of this brownstone since she purchased it in 1972. It is considered to be one of the city’s oldest brownstones - built around 1780 - and was possibly even a stop on the Underground Railroad. Edith went on to tell us that she was born in a small logging town in northern Idaho, and spent her elementary education in a one-room school house. It wasn't until seventh grade, when she attended a larger school in town that she was exposed to the theater. From her first moment on stage, playing George Washington in a school play, Edith knew that she was meant to have a life in the world of theater. Years later, after college, she married and came east to live in Warren, PA where she raised three children (who each went on to acclaim in the theater and music world) and began a summer theater company in a barn. Many years later, she brought the play "Touch" to Manhattan and "got hooked" with this city. She decided then that she had to have a theater of her own. When she saw an ad for the 13th Street theater, she grabbed it, and as she says, "the rest is history." These days Edith is still following her passion, offering opportunities for actors, directors, writers, and technicians to hone their craft and foster their own love of the stage. A taste of New York theater history can be found here by getting tickets to the longest running play on off-off Broadway, LINE, which Edith has housed for almost forty years in her well-loved theater.
