The Brunton Theatre is a mid-scale

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

venue in

Musselburgh Musselburgh (; sco, Musselburrae; gd, Baile nam Feusgan) is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of . History The name Musselburgh is Ol ...

East Lothian East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In 1975, the histo ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It is part of a wider complex, incorporating council offices, and called Brunton Memorial Hall. The building is textured concrete and glass, and was designed by William Kininmonth, with a gilded relief sculpture by Tom Whalen, a Scottish sculptor, on the facade (not to be confused with Tom Whalen the American writer and scholar).

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...

opened it in 1971. The name derives from John D. Brunton, son of John Brunton, the founder of the Brunton Wireworks. He died in 1951 and left a bequest of £700,000 to the people of Musselburgh for the purpose of creating a community hall. The Town Council supplemented this and created a larger scheme which incorporated their offices. There are two performance spaces in the building: a 300 capacity theatre, with notably clear sightlines, and a main hall upstairs, which seats 500. The main hall (also known as "Venue 1") hosts

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

concerts,

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

and

contemporary dance Contemporary dance is a genre of dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in ...

performances, as well as regular cinema screenings and live screenings from the National Theatre and

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...

. The theatre underwent refurbishment in the late 1990s, while the entire building was refurbished in 2010-11 for £3.2 million. There is also a curved bar area, and artwork around the theatre complex by Glasgow-based glass artist Deborah Campbell. Venue hire is managed by

East Lothian Council East Lothian Council is one of the 32 local government councils in Scotland covering the East Lothian area. Since the last boundary changes in 2017, 22 councillors have been elected from 6 wards. History East Lothian District Council had been ...

, while artistic programming is organised by the Brunton Theatre Trust, established in 1994. Children's theatre company, Catherine Wheels, are the resident company, and the theatre also acts as venue 191 at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

References

External links

Official website
* {{coords, 55.9439, -3.0570, display=title Theatres in Scotland Buildings and structures in East Lothian 1971 establishments in Scotland