Think the city looks a bit different these days? Well, get a load of the Meatpacking District.
Tony Award-winning designer David Rockwell has converted eight storefronts on West 13th and Gansevoort streets into vibrantly colored performance spaces for a summer theatrical event called “Seven Deadly Sins,” starting June 22.
He’s hoping it brings vitality back to our newly quiet neighborhoods.
“One of the things I recognized really early on in the pandemic, [while] looking out onto the street, is that, like the theater, New York without an audience is really just hardware,” Rockwell told The Post. “The life of New York comes from the people interacting on the street.”
That spirit of gathering outside is what the new show is built on. Audiences will start the performance, directed and co-written by Tectonic Theater Project’s Moisés Kaufman, in Purgatory and then wander to seven separate 10-minute plays. One or two actors — including Broadway talent such as Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Brandon J. Ellis and Morgan McGhee — will give it their all behind the shop windows (talk about a fourth wall), while a headphones-clad group of 24 watches each part from the street. The show will go on, rain or shine.
“Each one has its own kind of world that’s defined by a graphic over the window, the set in the window and seats and a carpet outside, each identified with a significant color,” said Rockwell.
And so all the eye-popping environments — and the plays themselves, each by a different acclaimed playwright — are wildly contrasting. “Gluttony,” for instance, takes place in a lush Garden of Eden, while “Sloth” is a more realistic Midwestern apartment.
Kaufman, the creator of “The Laramie Project,” approached Rockwell after the success of his early pandemic outdoor dining program, Dine Out NYC, which created free al fresco setups for struggling restaurants around the city, including Melba’s in Harlem. Both men are passionate about getting the theater, and the city, back on their feet.
“There’s a lot of discussion about Broadway coming back, which is gonna be incredible,” Rockwell said. “But I think this summer is going to have a whole range of outdoor hybrid things, which are going to be really amazing and get New Yorkers back into living in public spaces that make New York so great.”
“Seven Deadly Sins” runs June 22 through July 18. Tickets are available at SevenDeadlySinsNYC.com.