Treading the Boards
judy September 5th, 2007
Theatre Royal Restored
The unique Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds, is set to re-open on 11 September 2007 following a $10.5 million restoration and development project.
The UK’s only fully operational surviving Regency theatre has for the last two years been closed for a massive restoration program. It has been announced that the re-opening production will be the classic Georgian nautical melodrama "Black Eyed Susan" by Douglas Jerrold.
Following an extensive research period, architects Levitt Bernstein, in collaboration with theatre staff and the National Trust, drew up plans to restore the historic building to as close to its original design as possible. In order to accommodate the needs of a modern audience, a separate new wing was also designed to house bars, toilets and other facilities.
In tandem, over the past two years, the theatre’s artistic team have been researching the Georgian theatrical canon. The Georgian repertoire and the theatres for which it was written have largely disappeared from the theatrical landscape. The research has re-discovered many theatrical gems from the era and the best of these will be performed in the restored venue under the title "Restoring the Repertoire."
The theatre’s ambition is to do for Georgian theatre what London’s Globe Theatre has done for Elizabethan theatre.
Transforming the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
In case you’ve not heard, the original Royal Shakespeare Theatre has now closed and the Swan follows suit at the end of August 2007. Both are shutting to make way for a massive re-development of the site.
Despite the closures, the shows still go on a few hundred yards up the street where they’ve built a 1000 seat thrust stage auditorium so that business continues as usual until the new 1000-seat theatre reopens.
Shakespeare Under the Stars
During June to August enjoy an al fresco performance by the Stamford Shakespeare Company at Tolethrope Hall, Lincolnshire. This is a unique and special setting for one of England’s finest open air theatres…gentle slopes where you can enjoy a pre-performance picnic as the sun sets, a manor house of medieval origin presiding over beautiful gardens recreated to an original 19th-century design and a wondrous wooded glade embracing a natural amphitheatre. Shakespeare doesn’t get much better or more enjoyable than this.