In 1968, Philip Meister (1932-1982) and Elaine Sulka (1933-1994) opened the Cubiculo Theatre in a Hell's Kitchen brownstone in New York City. Meister and Sulka, who were married, co-founded the National Shakespeare Company in 1962, a touring troupe that presented plays at schools and universities across the country. The Cubiculo served as a home for the National Shakespeare Company as well as an off-off Broadway experimental theater. Meister named the theater after a line from Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night and also as a reference to the cubical shape of the theater.
Meister and Sulka ran "The Cube," as it was known, as a nonprofit with the help of John T. Dudich and then Maurice Edwards, who served as program coordinators. Programming included experimental plays, films, music, poetry, choreography, dance, and mixed media performances. They billed The Cube as a showcase theater, a place where artists could try out new ideas and works in an atmosphere that encouraged creativity and growth. The spaces, a seventy-five seat theater and a studio theater, were given to artists rent-free with promotion and lighting included. The Cubiculo fostered the careers of many artists including playwright Israel Horovitz.
In 1969 the Cubiculo was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and later one from the New York States Arts Council. Philip Meister died in 1982 and Elaine Sulka continued to run the theater until her death in 1994.
From the guide to the Cubiculo Theatre records, 1968-1977, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)
