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The Playhouse Theatre
is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square. 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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PLAYHOUSE THEATRE TICKETS
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History
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 Guinness 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
.
BBC studio and later years
In 1951 it was taken over by the
BBC as a recording studio for live performances.
The Goon Show
and the radio versions of
Hancock's Half Hour
and
Steptoe and Son
were recorded here, although at least the first two shows were recorded at other venues during their runs. 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 by impressario
Robin Gonshaw, opening again in October 1987 with the musical
Girlfriends
. A commercial building, Aria House, was erected above the theatre.
In 1988 the novelist and politician
Jeffrey Archer bought the Playhouse for just over £1 million. The following year, the theatre was offered commercial sponsorship by a financial services' company, and for a while it was known as the
MI Group Playhouse. In 1991 the Playhouse became home to the
Peter Hall Company, and a number of critically and comercially successful plays were performed there, including:
Tenessee Williams's
The Rose Tattoo
(1991), starring
Julie Walters, and
Molliere's
Tartuffe
(1991), starring
Paul Eddington and
Felicity Kendal. It was around this time that the basement bar area of the theatre was converted into a private restaurant, Shaws, though this didn't prove successful and the space was later converted back into a bar/cafe.
In 1992 Archer sold the Playhouse to the writer and impressario
Ray Cooney for just over £2 million. That year Cooney staged the West End premier of his latest farce
It Runs in the Family
at the Playhouse. This was followed by
Jane Eyre
(1993), adapted by
Fay Weldon and starring
Tim Pigott-Smith;
Frederick Lonsdale's
On Approval
, (1994), starring
Simon Ward,
Martin Jarvis and
Anna Carteret, and
Ray Cooney's
Funny Money
in 1995.
Following a critically-acclaimed revival of
Henrik Ibsen's
A Doll's 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.
Successes at the Playhouse since the late 1990s have included
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 playing at the theatre as of March 2007.
Recent and present productions
- Three Sisters
(3 April 2003 - 29 June 2003) by Anton Chekhov, translated by Christopher Hampton, starring Kristin Scott Thomas
- Vincent in Brixton
(19 July 2003 - 23 August 2003) by Nicholas Wright
- Les Liaisons Dangereuses
(12 December 2003 - 10 January 2004) by Christopher Hampton
- Journey's End
(3 May 2004 - 2 October 2004) by R.C. Sherriff
- Romeo and Juliet
(18 November 2004 - 9 January 2005) by William Shakespeare
- The RSC: House of Desires
(1 February 2005 - 21 March 2005) by Sor Juana de la Cruz
- The RSC: Dog in the Manger
(2 February 2005 - 26 March 2005) by Lope de Vega, translated by David Johnston
- The RSC: Pedro, The Great Pretender
(17 February 2005 - 12 March 2005) by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Philip Osment
- The Postman Always Rings Twice
(8 June 2005 - 3 September 2005) by James M. Cain adapted by Andrew Rattenbury, starring Val Kilmer
- As You Desire Me
(27 October 2005 - 22 January 2006) by Luigi Pirandello, starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Bob Hoskins
- The Creeper
(9 February 2006 - 18 March 2006) by Pauline Macaulay, starring the late Ian Richardson
- My Name is Rachel Corrie
(30 March 2006 - 21 May 2006) by Alan Rickman and Katherine Vilner, starring Megan Dodds
- The Rocky Horror Show
(4 July 2006 - 22 July 2006) by Richard O'Brien, starring David Bedella and Suzanne Shaw
- Dancing in the Streets
(1 August 2006 - 14 July 2007)
- Footloose - The Musical
(17 August 2007 - 6 December 2007)
- The Adventures of Tintin
(9 December 2007 - 12 January 2008), adapted from Hergé's novels
- Ring Round the Moon
(19 February 2008 - 29 March 2008) by Christopher Fry, adapted from Jean Anouilh's L'Invitation au Château
, directed by Sean Mathias, starring Angela Thorne
- The Harder They Come
(23 March 2008 - 13 September 2008) by Perry Henzel
- La Cage aux Folles
(21 October 2008 - )
See also
- List of London theatres
- List of West End musicals
- List of notable musical theatre productions
- Musical theatre
Notes
- Pink Floyd timeline accessed 27 Mar 2007
- ''thisistheatre'' Playhouse theatre history accessed 28 Mar 2007
References
- Pink Floyd timeline accessed 27 Mar 2007
- ''thisistheatre'' Playhouse theatre history accessed 28 Mar 2007