Nottingham Playhouse is a theatre in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

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 was first established as a

repertory A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawing ...

theatre in 1948 when it operated from a former cinema in Goldsmith Street. Directors during this period included

Val May Valentine Gilbert Delabere "Val" May, CBE (1 July 1927 – 6 April 2012) was an English theatre director and artistic director. He led the Bristol Old Vic from 1961 to 1975, and the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre from 1975 to 1992. Early life and educa ...

and Frank Dunlop. The current building opened in 1963.

The building

The architect of the current theatre, constructed as an example of

Modern architecture Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...

, was

Peter Moro Peter Meinhard Moro (27 May 1911 – 10 October 1998) was a London-based architect whose practice developed many notable public buildings. He was the son of Austrian physician and paediatrician Ernst Moro. Life and works Moro was born in Heide ...

who had worked on the interior design of the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. When the theatre was completed, it was controversial as it faces the

gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Roman Catholic cathedral designed by

Augustus Pugin Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 181214 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and, ultimately, Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival st ...

. However, the buildings received a Civic Trust Award in 1965. Despite the modern external appearance and the circular auditorium walls, the theatre has a

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

layout, seating an audience of 770. During the 1980s, when the

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

interiors were out of fashion, the Playhouse suffered from insensitive "refurbishment" that sought to hide its character. Since 1996, it has been a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

and in 2004, the theatre was sympathetically restored and refurbished with a grant from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

. The sculpture

Sky Mirror ''Sky Mirror'' is a public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor. Commissioned by the Nottingham Playhouse, it is installed outside the theatre in Wellington Circus, Nottingham, England. ''Sky Mirror'' is a -wide concave lens, concave dish of poli ...

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK ...

was installed between the theatre and the adjacent green space of Wellington Circus in 2001 at a cost of £1.25m (). It is one of the main features of the 160 seat Djanogly Terrace and in autumn 2007 won the Nottingham Pride of Place in a public vote to determine the city's favourite landmark. In 2014–15, Nottingham Playhouse underwent a complete environmental upgrade including insulation of the fly tower, secondary and double glazing and installing PV panels. The works were jointly funded by

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

, Nottingham City Council, patron donations and philanthropist Sir Harry Djanogly. The award-winning works have been calculated to cut annual energy usage by over 35%. In 2019, Nottingham Playhouse was named The Stage Regional Theatre of the Year.

Performance history

Aladdin pantomime Nottingham Playhouse 2008

The new theatre's artistic direction was shared between Frank Dunlop and actor John Neville with

Peter Ustinov Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov ; 16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, filmmaker and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits ...

as associate. The first production in the new theatre was Shakespeare's ''

Coriolanus ''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ye ...

'' in a production by

Tyrone Guthrie Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971) was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his ...

. This included a young

Ian McKellen Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. His career spans seven decades, having performed in genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Regarded as a British cultural i ...

as Tullus Aufidius opposite Neville in the title role. Subsequent artistic directors were Stuart Burge,

Richard Eyre Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre (born 28 March 1943) is an English film, theatre, television and opera director. Biography Eyre was born in Barnstaple, Devon, England, the son of Richard Galfridus Hastings Giles Eyre and his wife, Minna Ma ...

, Geoffrey Reeves, Richard Digby Day,

Kenneth Alan Taylor Kenneth Alan Taylor (born 1937) is a British pantomime writer and actor. He is best known for having played the pantomime dame for thirty years in his own productions at Nottingham Playhouse. Career He started writing Pantoes in 1962 in Oldha ...

, Pip Broughton, Martin Duncan and Giles Croft. The Playhouse is currently under the leadership of Stephanie Sirr MBE, Chief Executive and Adam Penford, artistic director. Nottingham Playhouse has a strong tradition of new works for children, both in the form of original writing and more recently in the form of classic

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...

s conceived by former artistic director Kenneth Alan Taylor. In common with most producing theatres, Nottingham Playhouse no longer has a

approach to programming although it continues to create up to 13 new productions per annum. Its recent successes include ''Old Big 'Ead in the Spirit of the Man'', a homage to Nottingham legend

Brian Clough Brian Howard Clough ( ; 21 March 1935 – 20 September 2004) was an English football player and manager, primarily known for his successes as a manager with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He is one of four managers to have won the Englis ...

, ''Rat Pack Confidential'' and ''

Summer and Smoke ''Summer and Smoke'' is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, completed in 1948. He began working on the play in 1945 as ''Chart of Anatomy'', derived from his short stories "Oriflamme" and the then-work-in-progress "Yellow Bir ...

'', which both transferred to the West End and ''

The Burial at Thebes ''The Burial at Thebes: A version of Sophocles' Antigone'' is a play by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, based on the fifth century BC tragedy ''Antigone'' by Sophocles. It is also an opera by Dominique Le Gendre. Plot Antigone, the daughte ...

'' which was part of the Barbican BITE season of autumn 2007 and toured the US in 2008. Its production of ''

Oedipus Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...

''. created by

Steven Berkoff Steven Berkoff (born Leslie Steven Berks; 3 August 1937) is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director. As a theatre maker he is recognised for staging work with a heightened performance style eponymously k ...

. toured to the

Spoleto Festival The ''Festival dei Due Mondi'' (Festival of the Two Worlds) is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958. It features a vast array of conce ...

and stage adaptation of ''

On the Waterfront ''On the Waterfront'' is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. ...

'' to the West End for an extended run. In 2013, an adaptation of ''

The Kite Runner ''The Kite Runner'' is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul, Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul. The story is se ...

'' by Matthew Spangler produced by Nottingham Playhouse became the theatre's best selling ever drama up to that point in time. Autumn 2014 saw a successful UK tour of the piece and summer 2022 a Broadway revival at the Helen Haynes Theatre, again directed by Giles Croft. In 2014, 2015 and 2016 the Nottingham Playhouse and

Headlong Theatre Headlong is a British touring theatre company noted for making bold, innovative productions with some of the UK’s finest artists. Jeremy Herrin took over the artistic directorship of the company in 2013, and is the current artistic director. Ar ...

production of ''1984'' played at the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End to positive reviews. In Autumn 2015' it toured to Australia and the USA. In 2016' it was announced that the award-winning Nottingham Playhouse production of

would transfer to the West End from December 2016 to March 2017. The run was subsequently extended to the Playhouse Theatre in summer 2017 prior to a second UK tour. In 2013, the theatre was awarded £1m from Arts Council England to undertake upgrading of the theatre's energy efficiency. Fiona Buffini's Mass Bolero'' marked 2014 - a tribute to

born Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's gold medal-winning performance at the 1984

winter olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...

by the people of Nottingham. Over 800 Nottingham residents took part and the work has currently been viewed almost 80,000 times on YouTube. In 2017 Touched by Nottingham writer Stephen Lowe and starring Nottingham-born actress

Vicky McClure Victoria Lee McClure (born 8 May 1983) is an English actress, model and presenter. She is known for her roles as Detective Inspector Kate Fleming in the BBC series '' Line of Duty'' (2012–present) and Lol Jenkins in Shane Meadows' film ''This ...

became the Playhouse's then best-selling ever drama. The highlight of its 70th anniversary 2018 season was ''

The Madness of George III ''The Madness of George III'' is a 1991 play by Alan Bennett. It is a fictionalised biographical study of the latter half of the reign of George III of the United Kingdom, his battle with mental illness, and the inability of his court to handle h ...

'' by

Alan Bennett Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and tw ...

starring

Mark Gatiss Mark Gatiss (; born 17 October 1966) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. His work includes writing for and acting in the television series ''Doctor Who'', '' Sherlock'', and '' Dracula''. Together with ...

, Debra Gillett and

Adrian Scarborough Adrian Philip Scarborough (born 10 May 1968) is an English actor. He has appeared in films including ''The Madness of King George'' (1994), ''Gosford Park'' (2001), ''Vera Drake'' (2004), ''The History Boys'' (2006), ''The King's Speech'' (2010 ...

which achieved record-breaking box office figures and was seen by around 500,000 people internationally through NTLive. In 2020-21 the theatre presented a range of live and digital productions including the world premiere of James Graham’s new play, inspired by the pandemic, ''Bubble''. Autumn 2021 saw the world premiere of

’s adaptation of ''

A Christmas Carol ''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas C ...

'' before a London transfer.. A filmed version is planned for 2022.

Participation and education

Through its Theatre In education (TIE) company Roundabout and, since 2004, in its own name Nottingham Playhouse has toured professional theatre in schools across the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Li ...

. It's TIE work has also toured internationally. It now runs classes and courses for all ages and includes a programme for people at risk of homelessness, learning disabled adults and runs ten youth theatres free of charge in the community.

Awards

The Stage ''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. It was founded in 1880. It contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at those wh ...

Regional Theatre of The Year 2019 What's On Stage Best Revival

2018 What's on Stage Best Supporting actor

The Madness of George III 2018 UK Theatre Best Performance in a Musical Rebecca Trehearn

Sweet Charity ''Sweet Charity'' is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon alongside John McMartin. It is based on ...

2019.https://uktheatre.org/theatre-industry/news/winners-announced-for-uk-theatre-awards-2019/ UK Theatre Best Design Morgan Large, Wonderland 2018

References

Mass Bolero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WOO6qoEcgo

External links

Official SiteProductions
an incomplete listing on Theatricalia. {{Authority control Grade II* listed buildings in Nottinghamshire Theatres in Nottingham Theatres completed in 1963 Producing theatres in England Recipients of Civic Trust Awards