New Victoria Theatre
Encyclopedia
The New Victoria Theatre in Woking
, England
opened in June 1992. The main theatre seats approximately 1,300 people, making it one of the largest receiving house theatres outside London. In addition to the main theatre the complex also contains the smaller Rhoda McGaw theatre and a six-screen cinema. The theatre
has presented dramas from groups such as the Royal Shakespeare Company
, Royal National Theatre
and the Peter Hall Company; regular visitors also include Glyndebourne
on Tour, Scottish Ballet
and Northern Ballet Theatre
.
Large-scale musicals
have included the award-winning Carmen Jones
, Chicago
, Cats
and Miss Saigon
, whilst the comedies, rock & roll musicals, children's shows and a Christmas
pantomime
also feature in the theatre's programme.
The theatre is split into three levels: Stalls, Royal Circle and Upper Circle, with the Royal Circle and Stalls having disabled seating available. The first three rows of the stalls (AA, BB and CC) are removed if space is needed for an orchestra pit.
("WDA") and the British All Winners Festival on those occasions when it has been invited to do so by the National Drama Festivals Association
. The venue has a unique relationship with the local council, whereby the council handles all the administration for the theatre, with the staffing and technical facilities run by the Ambassador Theatre Group. The council hires the theatre for four weeks each year to present professional touring productions (mostly one person shows), with the rest programmed by the WDA and local dance and drama schools.
Woking
Woking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, UK. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and the London commuter belt, with frequent trains and a journey time of 24 minutes to Waterloo station....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
opened in June 1992. The main theatre seats approximately 1,300 people, making it one of the largest receiving house theatres outside London. In addition to the main theatre the complex also contains the smaller Rhoda McGaw theatre and a six-screen cinema. The theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
has presented dramas from groups such as the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
and the Peter Hall Company; regular visitors also include Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
on Tour, Scottish Ballet
Scottish Ballet
Scottish Ballet is the national ballet company of Scotland and one of the four leading ballet companies of the United Kingdom, alongside the Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet...
and Northern Ballet Theatre
Northern Ballet Theatre
Northern Ballet, formerly Northern Ballet Theatre, is a dance company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with a strong repertoire in theatrical dance productions where the emphasis is on story telling as well as classical ballet...
.
Large-scale musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
have included the award-winning Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical starring Muriel Smith in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet...
, Chicago
Chicago (musical)
Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
, Cats
Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
and Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover...
, whilst the comedies, rock & roll musicals, children's shows and a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
also feature in the theatre's programme.
The theatre is split into three levels: Stalls, Royal Circle and Upper Circle, with the Royal Circle and Stalls having disabled seating available. The first three rows of the stalls (AA, BB and CC) are removed if space is needed for an orchestra pit.
Rhoda McGaw Theatre
The theatre seats 228 in 9 rows of raked seating and has been reported to have excellent acoustics. The stage is flat, 58’ wide from wall to wall, with a 36’ curtain opening. From the main tabs it is 19’ back to the cyclorama and 8’ forward to the front of the stage. The theatre has also been used by the Woking Drama Association to host the Woking Drama FestivalWoking Drama Festival
The Woking Drama Festival is one of the largest drama competitions in the British Isles for amateur dramatics focussing on one act plays with a dedicated Youth Section...
("WDA") and the British All Winners Festival on those occasions when it has been invited to do so by the National Drama Festivals Association
National Drama Festivals Association
The National Drama Festivals Association was formed in 1964 to encourage and support amateur theatre in all its forms and in particular through the organisation of drama festivals in the United Kingdom....
. The venue has a unique relationship with the local council, whereby the council handles all the administration for the theatre, with the staffing and technical facilities run by the Ambassador Theatre Group. The council hires the theatre for four weeks each year to present professional touring productions (mostly one person shows), with the rest programmed by the WDA and local dance and drama schools.