Donmar Warehouse
| Donmar Warehouse | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Donmar Warehouse, July 2007 | |
| Address |
41 Earlham Street
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| City | |
| Owned by | Leased to trust (Ambassador Theatre Group) |
| Capacity | 252 |
| Type | subsidised (not-for-profit) |
| Opened | 1977 |
| Production | 'Piaf' |
| www.donmarwarehouse.com | |
| Coordinates: 51°30′50″N 0°07′32″W / 51.513889, -0.125556 | |
Donmar Warehouse is a small not for profit theatre in the Covent Garden area of the London Borough of Camden, with seating for 250 playgoers.
Contents |
History
Theatrical producer Donald Albery formed the Donmar company in 1953, the name reputedly formed from DONald Albery and MARgot Fonteyn, the ballerina and a close personal friend.
In 1961, Albery bought the site, a space that was once the vat room and hops warehouse of a brewery, as a private drama studio and rehearsal room for Fonteyn's London Festival Ballet.
It was acquired as a theatre by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977, renamed the Warehouse, then converted and equipped at "immense speed" [1]. The first show was a transfer of Schweyk in the Second World War, transferred from the Other Place in Stratford and opening on 18 July 1977 — the electricity for the theatre was turned on just 30 minutes before curtain up and the concrete steps up to the theatre still wet (ibid).
The Warehouse was an RSC workshop as much as a showcase and the seasons were remarkably innovative, including Trevor Nunn's acclaimed Stratford 1976 Macbeth, starring Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, which opened at the Covent Garden venue in September 1977 before transferring to the Young Vic.
The Donmar became an independent producing house in 1992 with Sam Mendes as artistic director. Mendes quickly transformed the theatre into one of the most exciting venues in the city. His opening production was Stephen Sondheim's Assassins which revelled in the show's dark, comic brilliance and rescued it from the critical opprobrium it had suffered on its American opening. He followed this with a series of excellent classic revivals, many of which attracted some of the finest actors and biggest stars of the decade.
Among Mendes's best productions were John Kander and Fred Ebb's Cabaret, Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Stephen Sondheim's Company, Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus and his farewell duo of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night, which transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
As artistic director Mendes also gave some of the country's finest younger directors the opportunity to do some of their best work: Matthew Warchus's production of Sam Shepard's True West, Katie Mitchell's of Beckett's Endgame, David Leveaux's of Sophocles's Elektra and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing were amongst the most critically acclaimed of the decade. And the Donmar's present artistic director Michael Grandage directed some of the key productions of the later part of Mendes's tenure, including Peter Nichols's Passion Play and Privates on Parade and Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.
Current status
The present artistic director is Michael Grandage.
The Donmar Warehouse currently produces a mixed programme of new plays, revivals and musicals. For its revivals of foreign plays the company regularly commissions new translations or versions, including Ibsen's The Wild Duck (David Eldridge), Racine's Phaedra (Frank McGuinness), Dario Fo's Accidental Death of An Anarchist (Simon Nye) and Strindberg's Creditors (David Greig).
Its musical productions have included Grand Hotel and the Stephen Sondheim works, Pacific Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along, Company, Into the Woods and the 1992 production of Assassins that opened Sam Mendes' tenure as Artistic Director.
Many well-known actors have appeared at the theatre, including Nicole Kidman (The Blue Room), Gwyneth Paltrow (Proof), Ian McKellen (The Cut) and Ewan McGregor (Othello) [2]. McGregor acted alongside Kelly Reilly as Desdemona and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello.
With only 250 seats, the tickets for the Othello staging starring McGregor were in such demand that Grandage feared it could became "a bad news story"[3]. His response was to plan a one-year season at the 750-seat Wyndham's Theatre, four major new productions presented by Donmar West End. It commenced on 12 September 2008, with Kenneth Branagh in the title role of Chekhov's Ivanov, given in a new version by Tom Stoppard and directed by Grandage [2].
The West End season will continue with Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night (from 5 December 2008), Judi Dench in Yukio Mishima's Madame de Sade (13 March 2009) directed by Grandage, and Jude Law in Hamlet, directed by Branagh as artistic associate (29 May-22 August 2009). The highest ticket price for the season is set at £32.50 to match Donmar Warehouse price levels. Meanwhile the Donmar itself will host Strindberg's Creditors, directed by Alan Rickman, and a festival of work by TS Eliot.
Since 1992, Donmar original productions have received 27 Olivier Awards, 17 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, 9 Evening Standard Awards, as well as 12 Tony Awards from eight productions transferring to Broadway[4].
Productions
- Ivanov (Donmar West End 12 September - 29 November 2008)
- The Chalk Garden (5 June - 2 August 2008)
- Othello (4 December 2007 - 23 February 2008)
- Parade (musical) (14 September - 24 November 2007)
- Absurdia (26 July - 8 September 2007)
- Betrayal (31 May - 21 July 2007)
- Kiss of the Spider Woman (19 April - 26 May 2007)
- John Gabriel Borkman (15 February - 14 April 2007)
- Don Juan in Soho (30 November 2006 - 10 February 2007)
- The Cryptogram (12 October - 25 November 2006)
- Frost/Nixon (10 August - 7 October 2006)
- A Voyage Round My Father (8 June - 5 August 2006)
- Phèdre (6 April - 3 June 2006)
- The Cut (23 February - 1 April 2006)
- The Wild Duck (8 December 2005 - 18 February 2006)
- Guys and Dolls (20 May - 6 December 2005)
- The God of Hell (20 October - 2 December 2005)
- The Philanthropist (8 September - 15 October 2005)
- Mary Stuart (14 July - 3 September 2005)
- This Is How It Goes (14 July - 3 September 2005)
- The Cosmonaut's Last Message... (7 April - 21 May 2005)
- Days of Wine and Roses (17 February - 2 April 2005)
- Grand Hotel (musical) (19 November 2004 - 12 February 2005)
- Hecuba (9 September - 12 November 2004)
- Old Times (1 July - 4 September 2004)
- Pirandello's Henry IV (29 April - 26 June 2004)
- The Dark (18 March - 24 April 2004)
- World Music (12 February - 13 March 2004)
- After Miss Julie (20 November 2003 - 7 February 2004)
- The Hotel in Amsterdam (11 September - 15 November 2003)
- Pacific Overtures (20 June - 6 September 2003)
- Caligula (24 April - 14 June 2003)
- Accidental Death of an Anarchist (20 February - 18 April 2003)
- The Vortex (5 December 2002 - 15 February 2003)
- Lobby Hero (10 April 2002 - 4 May 2002)
References
- ^ The Royal Shakespeare Company by Sally Beauman, OUP (1982)
- ^ "Cast of Othello" (Site). Donmar Warehouse Theatre. Retrieved on 2007-12-16.
- ^ West End Story by Sarah Hemming, Financial Times 6 September 2008 [1]
- ^ History of the theatre Donmar site access 27 July 2007
See also
External links
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