High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Chelsea Theater Center was a not-for-profit theater founded in 1965 by Robert Kalfin, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. It opened its doors in a church in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1968, where it was in residence for ten years. Kalfin, the artistic producer, wanted to do the kind of work that had marked commercial off-Broadway in its prime but which, as a result of escalating production costs, could no longer realize a profit. By 1969, he was working with two new dynamic partners, also Yale graduates, Michael David, executive producer, and Burl Hash, production manger. They made it possible for him to realize the work he envisioned.