James Houghton, who created Signature in 1991 and remains artistic director, found a solution, thanks to an actor whose career he helped start: Edward Norton, the Oscar-nominated actor (“American History X”) and a Signature board member since 1996. Mr. Norton offered an empty corner in his expanded downtown apartment, and soon he and Mr. Houghton were holding cocktail parties and private viewings.  Mr. Norton’s friend Barry Diller came by one snowy morning; the foundation financed by Mr. Diller and his wife, Diane Von Furstenberg, ended up donating $3 million. This winter Mr. Norton hosted the hedge fund magnate William A. Ackman and his wife, Karen, who, like Mr. Norton, is on the board of the High Line. Even though the Ackmans have never seen a Signature production, they donated $25 million last week through their foundation.  On Tuesday Mr. Houghton, Mr. Norton and their friends will gather in finery to open the $66 million Signature Center, one of the most ambitious new cultural complexes in New York in decades and a testament to the value of long-term relationships.  Mr. Norton was an aspiring young actor out of Yale in 1993 when he auditioned for an Edward Albee production at Signature; he didn’t get the role, but Mr. Houghton liked what he saw and cast him in another Albee play, “Fragments.” (Most Signature seasons are devoted to a single playwright, a distinction that will continue among Signature’s expanded offerings.) Mr. Norton said that role earned him his first paycheck as an actor.  “Jim is an incredibly loyal man, to his actors and writers and also to his institutional vision for retrospective work at Signature, and his spirit was one I’ve loved being around,” said Mr. Norton, who, less than three years after “Fragments,” was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his feature film debut in “Primal Fear.” (He also starred in an acclaimed Signature production of “Burn This” in 2002.)  “So when Jim asked me to co-chair the capital campaign in August 2008,” he continued, “even when the bottom fell out of the economy the next month, with the Lehman collapse, I thought, ‘We can do this.’ ”  Mr. Houghton, also the director of the esteemed drama division at the Juilliard School, has managed a daunting feat in an economic downturn by attracting true believers to the 12-year planning effort for Signature’s home. Early on, he won friends in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration by agreeing to base Signature in a proposed performing arts center by Mr. Gehry at ground zero, then a key part of the redevelopment in Lower Manhattan. But the cost and logistics of the project became untenable, and by 2007 Mr. Houghton and Mr. Gehry were discussing a new home closer to the Times Square theater district.  The city has remained a supporter of Signature (as well as of other theaters seeking new homes), providing $27.5 million of the $66 million needed; Mayor Bloomberg’s own foundation is donating $3 million, Mr. Houghton said.  The center, which is opening on Tuesday night with a production of Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot,” includes three theaters, an expansive cafe and bookstore space, with sofas, open to the public (and free WiFi), and a gleaming glass marquee that newly lights a stretch of West 42nd Street near 10th Avenue. (Signature’s former home, a single theater located a block farther west, away from Times Square, is seeking new tenants.)  Another important relationship has been Mr. Houghton’s with Juilliard, which will base a new training program for drama students at Signature Center. Juilliard’s financial contribution will probably be a wash, given that Signature could probably otherwise rent that space; the artistic contribution, meanwhile, will be the energy of having Juilliard students and teachers working there.  “What mattered most in creating the center was proposing a bigger scale for Signature — the sort of scale that would excite major donors — while at the same time making clear that our mission would remain steady,” Mr. Houghton said in an interview in his modest office overlooking 42nd Street. “We’re not going to start creating a bunch of new musicals. We’re not going to start casting celebrity actors or aim things to transfer to Broadway.”  Part of the sales pitch of Signature’s capital campaign was the theater’s unusual commitment to low ticket prices: thanks to corporate and private underwriting, tickets are expected to cost only $25 for the next decade. (They ranged from $15 to $20 in recent years.)  Mr. Norton said Signature still had about $10 million left to raise for the combined needs of construction and the subsidized tickets. As for his own donation, he said, “I’m waiting to see what the gap is going to be when we get to the real zero hour.” Mr. Norton’s involvement is rare for a high-profile actor; he has proved to be Signature’s rainmaker, working virtually full time over the last two years and passing up several film projects to stay close to New York to help raise the money.  The addition of two new theaters is only one part of Signature’s expansion. The company, which has chiefly produced revivals, recently began an unusual residency program for playwrights that guarantees each of them three productions over a five-year period, as well as a $50,000 cash award and health insurance. The first playwrights in residence are Annie Baker (“Circle Mirror Transformation”), Will Eno (“Middletown”), Katori Hall (“The Mountaintop”), Kenneth Lonergan (“The Starry Messenger”) and Regina Taylor (“Crowns”).  Mr. Houghton estimated that Signature would produce 45 plays over the next five years, with about 35 of them new works. By comparison, over the previous five years, Signature produced about 20 plays, and about two-thirds were revivals.  Mr. Eno, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” said he decided to accept the Signature playwriting residency largely because of Mr. Houghton.  “Like almost no one I know, he manages to have both a deeply comprehensive and specific vision of things, along with a really wide-open and kind of down-home way,” Mr. Eno said. “It makes you feel very comfortable to be around someone who is both so aggressively detail-oriented and who’s also generally calm.”  The playwriting residencies have provoked some private grumbling among a few theater executives and playwrights’ agents, concerned that Signature is hoarding the talent. Yet none of those concerned would speak on the record.  “I’m sure people have opinions,” Mr. Houghton said, “but there is also plenty of remarkable theater going on in this city. And now Signature can be doing more of it.”
Signature Theater Company opens its new home on Tuesday, an ambitious project undertaken in the midst of the recession.