The Oxford Playhouse
Encyclopedia
Beaumont Street
Beaumont Street is a street in the centre of Oxford, England.The street was laid out from 1828 to 1837 with elegant terraced houses in the Regency style. Before that, it was the location of Beaumont Palace, now noted by a plaque near the junction with Walton Street...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, opposite the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
.
History
The Playhouse was originally founded as The Red Barn at 12 Woodstock Road, North OxfordNorth Oxford
North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College....
, in 1923 by J. B. Fagan
J. B. Fagan
James Bernard Fagan was an Irish-born actor, theatre manager, producer and playwright in England. After turning from the law to the stage, Fagan began an acting career, including four years from 1895 to 1899 with Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at Her Majesty's Theatre. He then began writing...
. The early history of the theatre is documented by the theatre director, Norman Marshall
Norman Marshall (theatre director)
Norman Marshall was an English theatrical director, producer and manager who began his theatrical career while still an undergraduate student at Oxford...
in his 1947 book, The Other Theatre. Don Chapman has also provided a comprehensive study of the theatre in his 2008 book, Oxford Playhouse: High and Low Drama in a University City.
The current theatre building on the south side of Beaumont Street was designed by Sir Edward Maufe
Edward Maufe
Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe KBE, R.A, F.R.I.B.A. was an English architect and designer, noted chiefly for his work on places of worship and remembrance memorials. He was a skilled interior designer and designed many pieces of furniture...
and was completed in 1938. It is faced with stone, in keeping with other early 19th century Regency
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
buildings in the street.
Well-known actors who have appeared on the stage at the Playhouse include Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
, Ronnie Barker
Ronnie Barker
Ronald William George "Ronnie" Barker, OBE was a British actor, comedian, writer, critic, broadcaster and businessman...
, Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
, Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
, John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
, Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
, Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
, Bill Hicks
Bill Hicks
William Melvin "Bill" Hicks was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks' material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy...
and Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
. Susannah York
Susannah York
Susannah York was a British film, stage and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. She won best actress for Images at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival...
gave her final performance at The Playhouse in August 2010 in Ronald Harwood
Ronald Harwood
Sir Ronald Harwood CBE is an author, playwright and screenwriter. He is most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay...
's Quartet
Quartet (Harwood)
Quartet is a play by Ronald Harwood about aging opera singers.The play, presented by Michael Codron, was first directed by Christopher Morahan at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford prior to its West End opening at the Albery Theatre on 8 September 1999 starring Sir Donald Sinden.Following a...
.
The Greek theatre director Minos Volanakis
Minos Volanakis
Minos Volanakis was a Greek theatre director and translator.He studied with Carolos Koun, for whom he translated American plays into Greek, and first made his name for his translations of the dramas of his friend Jean Genet, as well as for productions of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and...
was an associate director at the theatre; his productions included Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
's The Maids
The Maids
The Maids is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. It was first performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in a production that opened on 17 April 1947, which Louis Jouvet directed...
(1963–4) and The Balcony
The Balcony
The Balcony is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. Since Peter Zadek directed its first production at the Arts Theatre Club in London in 1957, the play has attracted many of the greatest directors of the 20th century, including Peter Brook, Erwin Piscator, Roger Blin, Giorgio Strehler, and...
(1967), and Jean Giraudoux
Jean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...
's Madwoman of Chaillot.
The present
A charitable trust owns and runs the Playhouse, through a professional management and direction team, as a theatre for the local community. It was closed for a number of years due to lack of funding, but is now refurbished and thriving.Oxford Playhouse has close relations with Oxford University and is the home stage of the Oxford University Dramatic Society
Oxford University Dramatic Society
The Oxford University Dramatic Society is the principal funding body and provider of theatrical services to the many independent student productions put on by students in Oxford, England...
. The Playhouse also manages on behalf of the University the nearby Burton Taylor Theatre
Burton Taylor Theatre
The Burton Taylor Studio is a 50-seater studio theatre owned by Oxford University. It is situated on Gloucester Street off Beaumont Street in Oxford, United Kingdom close to the Oxford Playhouse, a larger professional theatre, which manages the Burton Taylor Studio on behalf of the University...
, named in honour of Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
and Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
, a 50-seater studio theatre used for student productions and for rehearsals.
Sources
- Anonymous. 1999. Obituary in The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, November 20, 1999. - Chapman, Don. 2008. Oxford Playhouse: High and Low Drama in a University City. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN 1902806875.
- Marshall, Norman. 1947. The Other Theatre. London: John Lehmann.
- Parkinson, David. 2003. Oxford at the Movies. P.Ink Books.