George Street Playhouse, located on Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick.

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George Street Playhouse, located on Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick, was founded by Eric Krebs, an alumnus and longtime faculty member at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. He was the producing director for 14 years.

Photography: 
Nick Romanenko

Right next door to the Crossroads Theatre Company on Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick is another theater celebrating a big birthday—and one that was also founded by a Rutgers alumnus: the George Street Playhouse. Eric Krebs, a faculty member at Mason Gross School of the Arts for 34 years, opened the doors to the theater in 1974 (although at a different location). Today, Krebs RC’66, GSNB’73, who ran the George Street Playhouse for 14 years as its producing director, is as busy as ever. He runs Eric Krebs Theatrical Management and operates the Playroom Theater, both in New York City.

Krebs—today a professor in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College in New York City—also founded and served as the artistic director of the off-Broadway John Houseman Theater Center and the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre for more than 20 years. His New York producing credits include It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, which was staged at Lincoln Center (winning four Tony Award nominations), BASH, Electra, The Broadway Kids Sing Broadway, Capitol Steps, The Passion of Dracula, Fool for Love, and Paul Robeson. Krebs also produced Geoffrey Ewing’s Ali, the biography of Muhammad Ali, featured at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and at the Mermaid Theater in London.

Led by artistic director David Saint for 16 years, the George Street Playhouse has had several productions appear on and off Broadway: It Shoulda Been You, The Toxic Avenger, The Spitfire Grill, and Proof, by David Auburn, which was developed at the theater in 1999 during its Next Stage Series of new plays. In addition to its seasonal works that appear as part of the Main Stage Series, the George Street Playhouse produces its Touring Theatre, which features four pieces addressing topical issues such as cyberbullying that are commissioned by the theater and seen by more than 40,000 students each year.