Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre
| GPOAT | |
 | |
| Address |
Grosvenor Park Chester United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 53°11′23.9″N 2°52′55.7″W / 53.189972°N 2.882139°W |
| Operator | Chester Performs |
| Type | Open air |
| Capacity | 420 |
| Current use | Summer repertory |
| Website | |
| Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre | |
Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, located in Chester, UK, is a purpose-built venue with an eight-week annual summer season. Founded in 2010 by local arts producer Chester Performs, it is the only full-time professional open-air theatre company outside London.
The theatre
The open-air theatre is purpose-built each summer in Grosvenor Park, a public park in Chester. Performances are staged 'in the round', with the audience seated on all sides of a central stage. In 2011 the theatre switched from a traditional built stage to a more Shakespearean 'thrust' stage, made from woodchip. Limited covered seating was introduced in 2012. In 2013, the original horseshoe shape was replaced by full 'in the round' seating.
Productions
As of 2014, the theatre stages three productions per season, usually two Shakespeare plays and an additional work commissioned for the theatre. These have included Merlin and the Woods of Time, Masters are you Mad? The Search for Malvolio and adaptations of Hercules and Cyrano de Bergerac by Glyn Maxwell, the theatre's writer-in-residence (2010–13).[1] Directors have included Nikolai Foster (director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse), and Robin Norton-Hale.[2][3]
Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre also invites a company of 16–24 year olds to stage an original one-act play which is written, produced and performed by members of the company.[4]
Reviews
Alfred Hickling, writing in The Guardian in 2013, states In four years, Chester's Grosvenor Park theatre has grown from a spartan bank of seating into a perfect wooden O with audience cover, an expanded repertoire and upgraded picnic facilities.[5] The Stage describes the 2013 production of Cyrano de Bergerac as what good alfresco summer theatre is all about.[6]
References
- ↑ Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre: Past Productions (accessed 10 April 2014)
- ↑ Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre: As You Like It (accessed 10 April 2014)
- ↑ Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre: Masters are you Mad? (accessed 10 April 2014)
- ↑ Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre: Young Theatre Company (accessed 10 April 2014)
- ↑ The Guardian: A Midsummer Night's Dream – review (accessed 10 April 2014)
- ↑ Foss, Roger. "Cyrano de Bergerac". The Stage. Retrieved 8 April 2014.