Royal Court Theater
The Royal Court Theater is a theater in London . It is located on Sloane Square in the Chelsea neighborhood .
history
Opened in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theater , it was named Court Theater in 1871 . The current theater building was rebuilt in 1888 as the New Court Theater . From 1904 to 1907, under the joint direction of John Eugene Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker , there were important impulses not only to establish playwrights like George Bernard Shaw , but also to promote the repertoire system . After being converted into a cinema in 1932, the New Court Theater was bombed out in 1940 and reopened as a theater in 1952. Since 1956 the seat of the English Stage Company, until 1965 it was under the artistic direction of George Devine , then until 1972 under that of William Gaskill.
The Royal Court Theater developed alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theater to become the most important British subsidized theater , particularly for avant-garde contemporary drama and a predominantly intellectual bourgeois audience. As witnessed, for example, Samuel Beckett's one-act final here in 1957 its premiere. But classics were also performed, along with new productions of forgotten pieces.
The English Stage Company promoted particularly young authors and their first works, including John Osborne with the world premiere of Blick zurück im Zorn in 1956, Harold Pinter , Athol Fugard , Arnold Wesker , David Storey , Edward Bond , Caryl Churchill , Howard Brenton and Christopher Hampton .
In 1969 the studio stage Theater upstairs with 60 seats was opened to complement the repertoire and also to enable young authors to perform. In this way authors such as Sarah Kane , Mark Ravenhill , Mick Mahoney and Rebecca Gilman could be supported. The Young Writers Festival has been taking place regularly since 1973. In 1996 a department for international cooperation with innovative playwrights and theater practitioners was founded.
Stephen Daldry was in charge of the Royal Court Theater from 1992 to 1998 . From 1998 to 2006 Ian Rickson directed the theater, which was restored and modernized from 1997 to 2000. From 2007 to 2013 Dominic Cooke was director of the theater, which was named London Theater of the Year in 2010 .
literature
- Manfred Brauneck , Gérard Schneilin (ed.): Theater Lexicon 1. Terms and epochs, stages and ensembles . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag Reinbek near Hamburg, 5th completely revised new edition 2007. ISBN 978-3-499-55673-9
- Elaine Aston, Thomas Mark: Royal Court: International . London: Macmillan 2015. (Studies in International Performance.)
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 34.2 " N , 0 ° 9 ′ 23" W.