The same year, the American Renaissance Theater launched a series called Women in Concert with Susan Reed, followed by Martha Schlamme and Ethel Smith, the first theater cabaret series in New York City.

By 1979, several new full-length plays were up and running at the American Renaissance Theater’s busy theater on Charlton Street. In September of 1979, Ruby Ruby Sam Sam by Stan Edelman received a full production. It was directed by Anita Khanzadian and produced by Artistic Director, Robert Elston. Members of the cast included Elizabeth Perry (Ruby), Berkeley Harris (Sam), Jack Davidson (Joe), and Catherine Wolf (Rosalie).

 

In November of 1979, the musical play Women of Ireland, poetry, song, and dance compiled and arranged by Susan Reed (featuring Susan Reed and Bambi Linn) was produced and directed by Robert Elston.

In May 1980, Robert Elston performed Notes from the Underground, his adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Elizabeth Perry’s adaptation of Thoreau’s Walden at ARTC and at the Lincoln Center and Donnell Library.

In 1981, Robert Elston presented his dramatized selections from the works of Fry, Rosten, Roethke, Stevenson, Ives, Stanislavski, and the music of Weill/Gershwin, Kern/Gershwin, Weill/Brecht, and Cole Porter in Portrait of a Man, a collage of poetry and song directed by Anita Khanzadian, with Erica Kaplan as musical director. Portrait of a Man went on to play a fully mounted production at ARTC running from October through November of 1982.

 

Also that year, the Jeffrey Knox play Do You Still Believe the Rumor was presented by The American Renaissance Theater company and featured Anita Keal, Susan Reed, and Scott Jarvis, among others.