Hecht: I think being a nonprofit theater in New York City is so essential for our sense of community.

Auburn: MTC has been a home for me now for more than 20 years.

To have a place where you know you can come back with new work time after time is kind of miraculous.

Here we are.

Hello, sir.

I'm off to warm up.

There you go.

I have a personal predilection for three-ring circuses, and from my very beginning days on 73rd Street, we always had three things going at once.

East 73rd Street was like, "Wow!

Let's make theater."

But by the time they got to City Center, it had to be so much more professional.

Meadow: In a time when there are so many challenges to actually making art and making theater, we just have to remember to be as bold as we can and to speak out as much as we can and to support new voices.

When I look back over my life and being an actress in the theater, which is the only thing I think of when I think of being an actress, it's all those spaces in Manhattan Theatre Club that I'll think about.

Man: For as long as this theater has been here, it's been Lynne and Barry.

And that's the way I think of the Manhattan Theatre Club.

What keeps me coming back, to be honest with you, is Lynne.

She believes in me.

And right now, you know, she's my champion.

I've never seen two people who have worked together that long who are not married.

[ Laughs ] I think they are kind of married, whether they want to admit it or not.

And I've never seen two people, you know, curate decades and decades of theater together.

It's extraordinary.

To this day, the art of storytelling and the magic it brings to an audience can't be beat.

♪♪