Derby Theatre

Derby Theatre

Derby Playhouse
Derby Playhouse in the background (dark brown) during construction of Westfield Derby in 2005
Address	Derby United Kingdom
Owner	University of Derby
Capacity	535
Construction
Opened	1975
Architect	Roderick Ham
Website
www.derbylive.co.uk

Derby Theatre is a theatre situated in Derby, England. Formerly known as the Derby Playhouse, it was operated by Derby Playhouse Ltd from its opening in 1975 until 2008, when the company ceased operating after a period in administration. The theatre was subsequently reopened in 2009 as Derby Theatre under the control of the University of Derby, who use it as a learning and community theatre. Professional productions are staged at the venue in conjunction with Derby LIVE, the city council's performing arts programme.

On 29 November 2007, following the refusal of Derby City Council to forward £40,000 of grant monies, the Board of Trustees of the theatre announced that it was going into voluntary liquidation and that performances would cease immediately. The cast and crew of Treasure Island (the Christmas show that was due to 'press' that evening) defied the wishes of the Trustees and put on that evening's performance. On 30 November 2007 the Board of Trustees announced that the company had been put into administration.

The Arts Council subsequently suspended its funding.

The Playhouse then reopened on Friday 7 December 2007 to finish its run of Treasure Island, trading in administration. Tickets for a slightly modified Spring/Summer 2008 season, which had already been on sale for some weeks before the closure, were put back on sale during December and January while an appeal was made to the Arts Council. However, the Arts Council refused the appeal on 25 January 2008, and so the theatre closed after the last performance of Treasure Island on 2 February 2008, the run having been extended by one week.

At a meeting on 30 July 2008 the creditors voted to accept a rescue package put together by the new board of trustees of the company. Subsequently, the theatre reopened on Saturday 13 September 2008 with The Killing of Sister George starring Jenny Eclair.

The Derby Playhouse production, Moon Landing, has been nominated in the Best Musical Production category of the TMA Awards, 2008.

A NEW era has begun at Derby Playhouse – with the first productions expected on stage by October. University of Derby staff, who will manage the theatre, entered the city centre building Friday, April 24, 2009 just hours after signing a 99-year lease – for an undisclosed sum. Work is in progress to convert behind the scenes areas into offices and learning spaces for theatre and performing arts staff and students. University finance director Hari Punchihewa also hopes to receive applications from community groups and touring productions who want to put on productions at the theatre. He was quoted as saying "This is both a learning theatre and a community theatre and we want it to appeal to all ages and sections of society".

The Playhouse re-opened in October 2009 under the name Derby Theatre with two productions by local non-professional theatre group Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company who performed The Gondoliers and The Mikado. It is now being run by Derby LIVE. As of November 2009 they are showing the Bafta award winning play "The Pros, the Cons and a Screw", written by Tim Elgood. The Prison drama has received with strong reviews, "...altogether superb", The Stage.

History

The present day Derby Playhouse was officially opened on 20 September 1975 by the 11th Duke of Devonshire. It was the culmination of years of planning and fund-raising to secure a brand new theatre for Derby.

The original Playhouse had opened as the Little Theatre in Becket Street, back in 1948, in a converted Church Hall; in 1952, the company moved to further converted premises in Sacheveral Street, surviving a major fire in 1956.

In the 1960s and early 70's there was a renaissance in arts funding; government investment in the Arts Council of Great Britain's "Housing the Arts" fund enabled towns and cities all over the country either to renovate existing theatres, or commission new ones; as a result, new theatres were being constructed all over the country. With its success in Sacheveral Street, Derby Playhouse, too, wanted its own brand new, purpose-built theatre, so formed the New Theatre Trust in order to raise the local funding necessary for the project. From 1980 to 2003 and since the theatre's reopening, the theatre regularly hosted the Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company for their annual Gilbert and Sullivan shows.

Roderick Ham - who had already designed the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead - was commissioned to design the new theatre, and the City Council offered the site as part of the new shopping development, the Eagle Centre.

Productions

The New Playhouse opened with My Fair Lady and the high-profile first season continued with Hamlet and concluded the following summer with Allestree-born Alan Bates in The Seagull, a production which went on to play for a season in London.

Mark Woolgar was Resident Director for the first five seasons, with work ranging from Shakespeare, Shaw and Ibsen to Ayckbourn, Orton and Coward. Christopher Honer joined the Playhouse as Artistic Director in 1980. Over the next seven years, landmark productions included All My Sons with Miranda Richardson, Piaf with Caroline Quentin, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui starring Ben Roberts; new plays such as Don Shaw's The Conspirator and Rony Robinson's The Brewery Beano; and box office successes such as Funny Peculiar, Having A Ball! and Blood Brothers.

Meanwhile, the Studio, under the various direction of John North, David Milne and Claire Grove, not only provided a year-round programme of productions, but also mounted community tours and Theatre in Education.

In 1987, Annie Castledine succeeded Christopher Honer as Artistic Director, and for the next three years, the Playhouse saw a completely different style of theatre. Revivals of plays such as The Innocent Mistress, The Children's Hour and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs together with re-interpretations of classics such as A Doll's House and Jane Eyre. There were also plays from the popular repertoire such as Arsenic and Old Lace, Gaslight and Noises Off alongside new work such as Sunday's Children, The Queen of Spades, Selling the Sizzle and Self Portrait and a series of co-productions with such companies as Shared Experience, Paines Plough and Temba meant the Playhouse was seldom out of the news. The strength of the visual images on stage became an outstanding feature, and the work of a series of world-class designers could be seen on the Playhouse stage. The Playhouse was shortlisted for the prestigious Prudential Awards during this period.

When Annie Castledine left the Playhouse in the summer of 1990, Derby Playhouse faced the prospect of greatly reduced funding as Derbyshire County Council had cut their entire arts budget, depriving the Playhouse of £130,000 of revenue grant. Fortunately the City Council stepped in and offered the theatre an additional grant, which enabled the Playhouse to continue to operate, albeit on a smaller scale. From the summer of 1990 to Christmas 1991, Executive Director, David Edwards, was in charge of scheduling the programme, which culminated in the Playhouse's production of Hobson's Choice winning the Theatrical Management Association's Regional Theatre Award for Best Overall Production. In spring 1991, Mark Clements was appointed Artistic Director.

Mark's first season was an immediate critical and financial success, from its opening production of And A Nightingale Sang. But the real record breaker was to follow with John Godber's On The Piste, which was so popular that it had to be repeated later in the year, and again in 2001, and Godber's work became an ever-popular part of the programme during Clements' tenure. During the Clements period the programme included a variety of work, ranging from classics such as Death of a Salesman, Aphra Behn's Lucky Chance and Shakespeare's Richard III, to contemporary drama such as Our Boys, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Children of a Lesser God, and newly commissioned work such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Passion Killers and Blood Money. Musicals became an important part of the programme, starting with Grease, and including Little Shop of Horrors, Cabaret and Assassins, while the pantomimes written by Mark Clements and Michael Vivian drew in record numbers at Christmas time.

In 2002 both Mark Clements and David Edwards left the company. Karen Hebden was appointed as Chief Executive, closely followed by Stephen Edwards as Creative Producer.

Over the following years the Playhouse gained national recognition for its productions, particularly the works of Stephen Sondheim. To date there have been critically acclaimed in-house productions of Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Company and Merrily We Roll Along. Three of these productions featured West End and Broadway performer Glenn Carter, who has also appeared in other non-Sondheim productions at the Playhouse. One of these was a new music drama called Moon Landing, from an original idea and synopsis by Justin Fleming, written, composed and directed by Stephen Edwards. The production was based on the events of and leading up to the Apollo 11 lunar mission, and also looked at the more 'human' side of the story, following the relationships of the astronauts and their families. Carter appeared as Buzz Aldrin. The production was met with outstanding critical acclaim, especially as it was a brand new musical produced entirely in house by a regional rep theatre. An original cast recording was made, recorded live on the night of the final performance.

In 2007, productions at the theatre sold over 100,000 tickets in aggregate for the first time.

The theatre had a gained a national reputation for its productions. The joint Artistic Directors were Stephen Edwards and Karen Louise Hebden at the time the theatre closed.

Closure and temporary reopening

Derby Playhouse was closed suddenly on 29 November 2007, after the board of directors placed the company into liquidation. The staff were made redundant without any notice, and the performances of the Christmas show Treasure Island were cancelled. The show had been selling well, and had already been open for four preview performances. It had also followed a sellout run of the hit comedy Stepping Out directed by Steven Dexter. The cast, crew and staff of the Playhouse then rallied to put on one final performance of the show. After the curtain call, the cast were joined on stage by the rest of the staff, with Karen Hebden (the theatre's Chief Executive and director of the show), Michael Hall, and Prof. Jonathan Powers (two former chairmen of the Playhouse board) who then addressed the audience and press, asking them to fight for the city's theatre and get the Playhouse open again.

The following day the theatre was placed into administration, which meant it could potentially reopen and trade again. It had been placed in the hands of Tenon Recovery, who became administrators. During the following week, the public support gained huge momentum, including a candle-lit protest outside of the Derby City Council house, and over 3,000 people joining a 'Save Derby Playhouse' group on the social networking site Facebook in just five days. There were also many letters of support and shock on the pages of the Derby Evening Telegraph.

Derby Playhouse was able to re-open a week after its closure, after a consortium led by Powers was able to form a business plan that enabled the theatre to trade until the end of Treasure Island's original run. The box office re-opened on 7 December 2007 with performances recommencing on 8 December. The theatre was being run on a skeleton of essential staff, initially working unpaid to get the theatre up and running again. A fund was set up to accept donations to keep the theatre running, as it was now running as a charitable trust relying on ticket sales and donations alone. However, the theatre finally closed after the last performance of Treasure Island on 2 February 2008 (the run having been extended by one week).

At a meeting on 30 July 2008 the creditors voted to accept a rescue package put together by the new board of trustees of the company. Subsequently, the theatre reopened on Saturday 13 September 2008 with The Killing of Sister George starring Jenny Eclair.

Derby Playhouse joins a growing list of regional theatres that are struggling financially and fighting closure, such as the Exeter Northcott Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic.

Recent Productions

2008

• The Killing of Sister George

2007

• The Importance of Being Earnest
• Johnno, a co-production with Australia's La Boite Theatre.
• Merrily We Roll Along
• As You Like It
• The Tempest - Derby Playhouse Youth Theatre
• Moon Landing
• Stepping Out
• Treasure Island

Further information: Derby Playhouse production history

External links

• The Guardian Review of Treasure Island in The Guardian.
• The 'Save Derby Playhouse' Protest Website Protest website set up by Derby City residents and former employees of the theatre
• Derby Playhouse Official Theatre website
• Audio recording of the protest rally at Derby City Council house, December 4th 2007