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Joe Cino opened his coffeehouse in Greenwich Village in 1958. The theatre world was outraged by the audacity and inspired by the originality of the work performed, between raids by the police (for the place had no theatre license), on Joe's eight-by-eight-foot stage. In 1968, a year after Joe died, Broadway's first rock musical, Hair, premiered, directed by a Caffe Cino pioneer. Joe Cino had sparked a revolution. This collection includes two dozen plays introduced at the Cino, memoirs of off-off-Broadway legends, and historic reviews and photographs.

Essays, Memoirs and Interviews
Magic Time   Steve Susoyev     8
Making Amends   George Birimisa     10
The Accidental Theatre   Wendell C. Stone     14
To Conquer Broadway   Marshall W. Mason     18
Eden   Edward Albee     24
To Thine Own Self Be True   Helen Hanft     27
For the Audience   Tom O'Horgan     29
Letter from the Rev. Al Carmines     32
I Was Reborn on Cornelia Street   William M. Hoffman     34
Anger Management, Cino Style   Lucy Silvay     37
Joe's Gift to the World   Magie Dominic     39
Joe Cino's Kaleidoscopic Stewpot   Dan Leach     42
Cino People   Robert Patrick     44
Running the Balls   Michael Warren Powell     46
On Aggression   Ronald Tavel     48
Succeed or Fail Without Recrimination   Jennie Ventriss     49
Cino Cuisino   Walter Michael Harris     50
This is Crazy   Larry Loonin     55
Play It for the Walls   Crystal Field     56
About Johnny Dodd   Michael Smith     58
About Michael Smith   Larry Loonin     60
The Hymn of the Evening   Sandra Bigtree     61
The Playwright Was Royalty   Bob Shields     63
A Kid at the Cino: A Distant, Distinct Memory   Perry Brass     65
The Spring Gala 1966, or The Horror Show   Genji (formerly John) Schmeder     68
Young and In Love with Theatre   Mari-Claire Charba     71
The Point of Acting   Claris Nelson     73
Who Is This Guy Cino?   Jerry Cunliffe     75
Gebondoretta   Glenn DuBose     76
So, Who's Afraid of David Starkweather?   Richard Smithies     79
A Place to Say Something   Phoebe Wray     81
A Recollection   David Christmas     82
Tribal Renaissance   Francis Medicine Story Talbot     84
Tom Eyen, the Beginning, by His Brother   Richard Eyen     86
Greenwich Village - The Glory Days   Robert Heide     87
Magic, Mystery and Madness from San Francisco to the Caffe Cino   John Gilman     89
Thank God I'm a Pisces   Robert Dahdah     91
The Plays
A Funny Walk Home   Jeff Weiss     95
How "Host" Happened   Robert Patrick     123
The Haunted Host   Robert Patrick     124
Dames at Sea   George Haimsohn   Robin Miller   Jim Wise     165
Excerpt from Fag Hag: An Annotation upon William M. Hoffman's Good Night, I Love You   Lucy Silvay     184
Good Night, I Love You   William M. Hoffman     185
Daddy Violet   George Birimisa     195
Vinyl   Ronald Tavel     211
The Clown A Fantasy   Claris Nelson     224
The Singing Lesson   Daniel Haben Clark     242
Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie? Or: Thank God for Small Favors!   Tom Eyen     259
Sex Is Between Two People   Lanford Wilson     284
Hurrah for the Bridge (Que Viva El Puente)   Paul Foster     293
Medea of the Laundromat or The Stars May Understand   H. M. Koutoukas     309
The Bed   Robert Heide     329
Moon   Robert Heide     338
Monuments   Diane di Prima     354
Vorspiel Nach Marienstein   Michael Smith      363
I Like It   Michael Smith     365
The Brown Crown   Haal Borske     373
Icarus's Mother   Sam Shepard     388
Now She Dances!   Doric Wilson     405
Acknowledgments     463
Bibliography and Selected Resources     466
Plays Produced at the Caffe Cino     468
Index     479