Playhouse Theatre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square and very close to the river Thames. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery. Its current seating capacity is 786.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early years
Originally the Royal Avenue Theatre, it opened on March 11, 1882 with 679 seats. The first production at the theatre was Jacques Offenbach's Madame Favart. In its early seasons, the theatre hosted comic operas, burlesques and farces for several years. For much of this time, the low comedian, Arthur Roberts, a popular star of the music halls, starred at the theatre. By the 1890s, the theatre was presenting drama, and in 1894 Annie Horniman, the tea heiress, anonymously sponsored the actress Florence Farr in a season of plays at the theatre. Farr's first production was unsuccessful, and so she prevailed upon her friend, George Bernard Shaw to hurry and make his West End début at the theatre with Arms and the Man in 1894. It was successful enough to allow him to discontinue music criticism to focus full time on play writing. The legendary actress manager Gladys Cooper ran the theatre for some years.
The theatre was rebuilt in 1905 to the designs of Blow and Billerey. During the work, a block of masonry dropped from the adjacent Charing Cross railway station, falling through the roof of the theatre and killing six workmen and injuring many more. The theatre was repaired and re-opened as The Playhouse on January 28, 1907 with a one-act play called The Drums of Oudh and a play called Toddles, by Tristan Bernard and Andre Godferneaux. The new theatre had a smaller seating capacity of 679. W. Somerset Maugham's Home and Beauty premièred at the Playhouse on August 30, 1919, running for 235 performances, and Henry Daniell appeared here in February 1926 as the Prince of Karaslavia in Mr. Abdulla. Nigel Bruce appeared in February 1927 as Robert Crosbie in Somerset Maugham's The Letter, and again in May 1930 as Robert Brennan in Dishonoured Lady. Alec Guiness made his stage début here in Ward Dorane's play Libel! on April 2, 1934. Daniell returned in November that year as Paul Miller in Hurricane.
[edit] BBC studio and later years
In 1951 it was taken over by the BBC as a recording studio for live performances. Hancock's Half Hour, The Goon Show and Steptoe and Son were all recorded here. The stage also hosted live performances by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. On April 3, 1967 a live Pink Floyd concert was broadcast from the theatre[1].
When the BBC left around 1976, the theatre went dark and was in danger of demolition, but it was saved and restored to its 1907 design, opening again in October 1987 with a commercial building now erected above the theatre. Following a critically-acclaimed revival of Henrik Ibsen's A Dolls House in 1996, starring Janet McTeer, the theatre was sold and closed again for refurbishment, reopening in 1997 as a producing house with the West End première of Anton Chekov's The Wood Demon. This was poorly received, and the theatre returned to life as a commercial receiving house. However, the auditorium is luxuriously decorated, with grandiose murals, caryatids, golden pillars, carved balustrades, and shining gold decoration.
Recent successes at the Playhouse have been Naked (1998); J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls (2001) and Journey's End, directed by David Grindley. American theatrical producers Ted and Norman Tulchin's Maidstone Productions purchased the theatre at the end of 2002[2], and the venue is being managed by the Ambassador Theatre Group. The Playhouse then hosted Richard Eyre's 2003 Olivier Award-winning production of Vincent in Brixton, starring Clare Higgins; and Eyre's 2005 production of Hedda Gabler, starring Eve Best. Megan Dodds starred in a revival of the controversial My Name Is Rachel Corrie in 2006. The musical Dancing in the Streets is currently playing at the theatre.
[edit] See also
- List of London theatres
- List of West End musicals
- List of notable musical theatre productions
- Musical theatre
[edit] Notes
- ^ Pink Floyd timeline accessed 27 Mar 2007
- ^ thisistheatre Playhouse theatre history accessed 28 Mar 2007
[edit] References
- Who's Who in the Theatre, edited by John Parker, 10th edition revised, London, 1947.
- History of the theatre
- Playhouse Theatre history and images at the Arthur Lloyd site
- Profile of the theatre
- Architectural information about the theatre
- Another profile of the theatre
- Theatre history
