The Theatre Royal Wakefield is a theatre in

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

, England, which dates back to 1894. The theatre was originally known as the ''Theatre Royal and Opera House'' and dates back to the 1770s. The theatre lies on the corner Westgate and Drury Lane. It was designed in 1894 as the Wakefield Opera House, by theatre architect

Frank Matcham Francis Matcham (22 November 1854 – 17 May 1920)Mackintosh, Iain"Matcham, Frank" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 7 July 2019 was an English architect who specialised in the design of theatres and ...

, and was built for a price of £13,000. The Theatre Royal Wakefield is the smallest remaining of Matcham's theatres. In the 1920s the theatre had to compete against cinemas and in the summer live shows were replaced by films. In 1954 the theatre closed and became a picture house, and a few years later, a bingo hall. However, in 1981 it reopened as the Wakefield Theatre Royal under chairman Sir Rodney Walker. Support was given to revitalise the theatre from city leaders and music and drama amateurs and professionals. Theatre Royal Wakefield operates as both a producing and a receiving house. In 2011 British playwright

John Godber John Harry Godber (born 18 May 1956) is an English playwright, known mainly for observational comedy, observational comedies. The ''Plays and Players Yearbook'' of 1993 rated him the third most performed playwright in the UK after William Shak ...

joined the Theatre as Creative Director, and the Theatre now plays a producing role for The John Godber Company. Theatre Royal Wakefield works with young people, with its Performance Academy operating across two sites in Wakefield and

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...

. It runs dance, music and drama training for children aged from 5 to 18, as well as its youth company, Wakefield Youth Music Theatre. In 2012 the Theatre applied for funding 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 ...

for a £2.6 million project to restore the theatre building.

References

External links

Theatre Royal Wakefield
Theatres in West Yorkshire Grade II* listed theatres Culture in Wakefield Listed buildings in Wakefield {{UK-theat-struct-stub

See also

References

External links