The Criterion Theatre is situated in

Earlsdon Earlsdon is a residential suburb and electoral ward of Coventry, England. It lies approximately one mile to the southwest of Coventry City Centre. It is the birthplace of aviation pioneer Frank Whittle. Amenities Most shops and restaurants are ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It puts on about seven shows a year. The company has won the Godiva Award for best theatre in the region several times. The current patrons are

Pete Waterman Peter Alan Waterman, (born 15 January 1947) is an English record producer, songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterm ...

, music producer and railway preservationist, born in Coventry and

Ron Cook Ronald G. Cook (born 1948) is an English actor. He has been active in film, television and theatre since the 1970s. Early and personal life Cook was born in 1948 in South Shields, County Durham, England, the son of a school cook and a car wo ...

, stage and screen actor of '' Thunderbirds'' and ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' fame, who first acted as an amateur at the Criterion. The Coventry born actor, Sir Nigel Hawthorne (1929–2001), was a former patron.

Theatre building

The building was built in the 1880s and served as the Earlsdon

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

until 1923, when it was replaced by a new church on the corner of Albany Road and Earlsdon Avenue South. It was then used as a Sunday school and as a venue for a variety of community events. It was sold by the Methodists in 1960 to the ''Criterion Players'', a local church amateur dramatic society that had formed in 1955. The building was converted and with one stage, the Criterion Theatre was opened in 1961 by Mr S.H. Newshome, a patron, who was the Managing Director of the Coventry Hippodrome (now demolished).

References

External links

Criterion Theatre websiteCoventry City Council. Theatre and the Arts.
Theatres in Coventry {{UK-theat-struct-stub