Jalopy Theatre and School of Music

Theater Description

The Jalopy Theatre and School of Music is a multi-faceted arts space showcasing evolving folk and traditional music and art from New York City, the Americas, and the world. Our programming supports artists, fosters multi-generational community, and provides enrichment and education about our shared musical heritage.

Husband and wife team Geoff and Lynette Wiley founded Jalopy in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 2006 with the hope of fostering a community around a shared appreciation of traditional roots music. Jalopy Theatre and School of Music seeks both to support local and traveling artists, and to educate students and audiences new to this music and culture.

Jalopy Theatre recently joined forces with Living Traditions, a nonprofit organization, founded in 1994, dedicated to preserving, promoting and perpetuating traditional folk music. For thirty years, Living Traditions produced the wildly successful KlezKamp, a beloved annual Yiddish folk arts gathering in the Catskills. Living Traditions’ own programming ended in 2014, and we are proud to be taking up their mission as our own. Through this relationship, Jalopy Theatre is now able to operate as a nonprofit organization, which offers us new opportunities to connect with our community, strengthen our organization, and continue to evolve as we begin our second decade.

At Jalopy Theatre we prize the handmade, the analog, the authentic, the face-to-face experience. We offer music experiences that are grass roots, non-corporate, and participatory. We provide opportunities for musical traditions to be transmitted across generations, in a communal learning environment that supports joy in music making for people of all ages and abilities. We seek to be a home for the artists, audiences, and students who form and contribute to our community. We invite you to come on down to the Jalopy Theatre for a concert, to take a class, to make friends, and to share with us your love for traditional roots music.