Theatre Royal, Plymouth

Theatre Royal Plymouth

Main entrance of Theatre Royal Plymouth
Address	Royal Parade Plymouth UK
Type	Producing and Receiving House
Capacity	1,320
Construction
Opened	1982
Architect	Peter Moro
Website
http://www.theatreroyal.com

Theatre Royal Plymouth is a theatre venue in Plymouth, Devon. It consists of a large main auditorium, The Lyric, which regularly hosts large-scale musicals, opera and ballet; a 200 seat studio, The Drum; and a 50 seat studio, The Lab. On a seperate site, Theatre Royal Plymouth also has a production and learning centre, TR2, featuring rehearsal studios and workshops for the production of set and costumes.

The theatre is a National Portfolio Organisation, receiving regular funding from Arts Council England.

A £7 million Regeneration Project was completed in September 2013 with a renovated front of house area and community performance space called The Lab.

In 1758 a theatre was built at the top of George Street in Plymouth. Originally known as the Theatre, Frankfort-Gate, it adopted the name Theatre Royal after King George III and his family visited it in 1789.

In 1810 Plymouth Corporation held a competition for the design of a new theatre, hotel and assembly rooms at the bottom of George Street. The competition was won by John Foulston, who built a neo-classical block of buildings between 1811 and 1813. The new Theatre Royal opened in 1813 and could seat 1,192. Foulston's buildings formed a frontage of 268 feet (82 m) facing George's Place that was dominated by a portico with 30-foot (9.1 m)-high ionic columns. The theatre was on the west side of this portico, with the hotel and assembly rooms on the east. Foulston used thick walls to separate the auditorium from the foyer, corridors and the hotel next door to minimise the risk of fire damage. The whole inner structure was built of cast iron for the same purpose, and Foulston believed it was the only fireproof theatre in the country. Despite these precautions, the theatre suffered a disastrous interior fire in June 1878; by January 1879 it had been repaired and reopened.

The decline in theatre-going caused by the rise in cinema attendance resulted in the building being demolished in 1937. It was replaced by the 2,400-seat Royal Cinema, which opened the following year. The cinema survived the Plymouth Blitz during the Second World War, which destroyed the adjoining hotel and assembly rooms. By 1954 the decline in cinema-going caused by the rise of television led to the cinema's being partly converted back to a theatre and rechristened as the Theatre Royal Cinema. In 1958 it was renamed the ABC Plymouth. It is now a three-screen cinema known as the Reel Plymouth, run by Reel Cinemas.