Suppose you’re a world-class theatre company on the grounds of America’s pre-eminent performing arts campus, and you need to expand. There’s no more space on the ground, but everyone strongly feels that you should be within close proximity to your other performance spaces. What do you do? If you’re anything like Lincoln Center Theatre, you take a tip from the Drifters' classic rock & roll tune and go up where the air is fresh and sweet: up on the roof.

That’s right, Lincoln Center Theatre is building a new Off-Broadway theatre space on the roof of their Broadway home, The Vivian Beaumont Theatre, which is itself over their existing Off-Broadway space, The Mitzi Newhouse Theatre. Construction on the new Claire Tow Theatre is scheduled to begin in March, and will be complete in late 2011 or early 2012.

The $41 million dollar, 23,000 square foot glass-concrete-aluminum structure will house a 131-seat theatre, as well as dressing rooms, LCT offices, and rehearsal space, all topped by a green roof and an outdoor terrace. The addition will be set back from the front of the building (see architectural renderings to the left), and will be accessible via an elevator which will borrow some space from Lincoln Center’s adjacent New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

The Clair Tow Theatre, named after the wife of long-time LCT board member Leonard Tow, will be the permanent home of Lincoln Center Theatre’s LCT3 initiative. Armed with the slogan “New Artists, New Audiences,” LCT3 strives to produce the work of America’s most exciting, innovative young playwrights and directors, while keeping ticket prices at a very accessible $20. The program kicked off at the Duke on 42nd Street in fall 2008 with the hip-hop musical Clay, followed by this season’s What Once We Felt and the upcoming Graceland and On the Levee. LCT3 shows will continue to play at the Duke until construction of The Clair Tow Theatre is complete.