Curtain Theatre was an influential amateur theatrical company active in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

between 1933 and 1939. It was seminal in reviving theatrical culture in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

Founding

Curtain Theatre was founded by Grace Ballantine, Molly Urquhart and Paul Vincent Carroll with the aim to support new Scottish writing for the stage and develop Scottish styles of performance at a time when Scotland's own native theatre traditions had been all but lost. It emerged from the dissolution of RF Pollock's short-lived Tron Theatre Club in 1932.

Productions

In the seven years between 1933 and 1939, the Curtain produced a full annual programme of plays and launched the careers of a number of playwrights, actors and

impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. His ...

s who would be influential to the rising Scottish drama of the twentieth century, most notably Paul Vincent Carroll,

Robert McLellan Robert McLellan OBE (1907–1985) was a Scottish renaissance dramatist, writer and poet and a leading figure in the twentieth century movement to recover Scotland’s distinctive theatrical traditions. He found popular success with plays and ...

and Duncan Macrae. One of its most famous productions was the premiere of McLellan's play, ''

Jamie the Saxt ''Jamie the Saxt'' is a four act play in Scots by the Scottish dramatist, Robert McLellan, first produced by Curtain Theatre The Curtain Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Hewett Street, Shoreditch (within the modern London Bor ...

''. Its early productions were by subscription in a dedicated small

studio theatre A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black ...

which the company established at a private address close to the city's University district. After 1935, productions were mounted in Glasgow's Lyric Theatre.

Influence

Curtain Theatre in its original form folded soon after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, although one of its members opened the Park Theatre next door to what had been the Curtain Theatre. Although it was short-lived, the Curtain Theatre activities as a dynamic amateur company played a vitally important part in reviving theatrical culture in Scotland, giving new Scottish actors a home-grown base for developing Scottish self-expression in the theatre arts, and breaking open new paths in the movement which eventually led to the re-establishment of native professional theatre in the country in the 1940s.

Sources

*Priscilla Barlow, ''Wise Enough to Play the Fool'' (Edinburgh, 1995) *Donald Campbell, ''Playing for Scotland: A History of the Scottish Stage, 1715–1965'', (Edinburgh, 1996) *Bill Finlay, ''A History of Scottish Theatre'' (Edinburgh, 1998) *David Hutchison, ''The Modern Scottish Theatre'', (Glasgow, 1977)

References

External links

Grace Ballantine and Curtain Theatre
– Glasgow University Archives Hub
RF Pollock
Scottish Theatre Archive Theatres in Glasgow Former theatres in Scotland 1933 establishments in Scotland 1939 disestablishments in Scotland {{Glasgow-stub