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London
Theatre Guide
Arts Theatre
Address: Great Newport Street London, WC2H 7JB
Tube: Leicester square
Architect: P Morley Holder
Opened: 1927
Capacity: 358
The Arts Theatre opened as a small private members club to avoid the censorship laws. It quickly established a name for itself as theatre that produced classics and encouraged new productions. Sir Peter Hall directed Waiting for Godot the Samuel Beckett classic when it had its U.K. premier. The Arts Theatre Club was once described as “a pocket national theatre”. In the early sixties, The Arts theatre was home to the experimental wing of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Other notable plays were Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane, O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer.
Caryl Jenner had staged new children’s shows at Christmas and her company leased the Arts in 1967 becoming the first theatre for children in the UK. The company produced children’s theatre in the matinees and adult theatre for the evening performance.
Past Productions at the Arts Theatre:
- Mourning Becomes Elektra by Eugene O’Neill
- Waltz of the Toreadors by Jean Anouilh in 1955/6.
- The Pet Shop Boys Musical,
- Closer to Heaven,
- Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues,
- Justin Butcher’s satire The Madness of George Dubya
- Richard Dormer’s critically acclaimed Hurricane.
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