NEW YORK, NY.- In another indication of how postpandemic economics are rattling the nonprofit theater world, the prestigious Soho Rep is giving up its longtime home in TriBeCa and will instead share space with Playwrights Horizons, a midtown Manhattan theater company, while trying to figure out a longer-term plan.

The move, prompted by real estate constraints as well as fiscal concerns, comes at the same time that another important New York nonprofit, Second Stage Theater, is leaving its off-Broadway home. That company is now planning to reside, at least temporarily, with Signature Theater, which in recent years has had more space than it can afford to program.

The two decampments follow a 2022 decision by Long Wharf Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut, to let go of its waterfront home and become itinerant.

Taken together, the transitions are a reminder of the enormous stresses facing nonprofits, and suggest that revisiting real estate choices will become part of the solution for some.

“If you look at the field-wide vulnerability, partnerships are a result of that,” said Eric Ting, one of Soho Rep’s three directors. “We look to each other for support and for strength.”

Soho Rep, established in 1975, is small: Its current annual budget is about $2.8 million, it has just five full-time employees and since 1991 it has been presenting most of its work in a 65-seat TriBeCa space, making it an off-off-Broadway theater. But the company, committed to what it calls “radical theater makers,” punches way above its weight. It was the first to stage Jackie Sibblies Drury’s “Fairview,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 2019, as well as Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s “Public Obscenities,” which was a Pulitzer finalist this year. The theater has regularly introduced New York audiences to work by important, and often provocative, playwrights, including Sarah Kane, Aleshea Harris, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Lucas Hnath.

Soho Rep plans to stage one final show at its current home, at 46 Walker St., this fall, “Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,” which is a collaboration between performance artist Alina Troyano and Jacobs-Jenkins, who won a Tony Award this year for “Appropriate.” The work is being directed by Ting, who shares leadership of Soho Rep with Cynthia Flowers and Caleb Hammons.

Soho Rep moved out of its current home once before, in 2016, citing permitting issues, and later returned, with help from city officials. But now, the theater’s leadership said, they really need to leave, citing rising rent (the theater’s previous landlord died during the COVID pandemic, and the building was sold to a corporate real estate holding company) and persistent expenses for building repairs. In addition, the space is not accessible and is so small that the company can’t generate enough revenue to sustain operations.

It found a willing partner in Playwrights Horizons, which last season shared its venues with another nonprofit, the Movement Theater Company.

“It shouldn’t be news to anyone that nonprofit theaters are struggling acutely, and the costs of maintaining a theater company, even at a significantly reduced scale, are skyrocketing,” said Adam Greenfield, artistic director of Playwrights Horizons. “New approaches to how theaters work have become a mandate.”

The plan is for Soho Rep to produce two of its three shows each season, for two or three seasons, in a 128-seat theater at Playwrights Horizons. Some of the shows will be co-productions, and the two companies — both of which ran deficits last season, despite producing well-reviewed and strong-selling shows — expect to collaborate in a variety of ways.

Soho Rep will find other venues for its other shows as it tries to consider where it wants to be long-term. “We want to approach this as an opportunity to experiment,” Hammons said.

The theater’s leaders said they are open to remaining in lower Manhattan. But there are factors beyond their control. TriBeCa, for example, has become one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods. “We would love to continue to be a part of a downtown arts and culture scene,” Flowers said. “The question we’ll explore is, ‘Is that possible?’”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.