 | |
| Coordinates | 51°29′55″N0°08′27″W / 51.49857°N 0.14091°W |
|---|---|
| Capacity |
|
| Construction | |
| Built | 1766 |
| Opened | 1931 |
| Renovated | 1924, 1931, 1966, 1972 |
| Demolished | 2002 |
The Westminster Theatre was a theatre in London, on Palace Street in Westminster.
| | |
| Coordinates | 51°29′55″N0°08′27″W / 51.49857°N 0.14091°W |
|---|---|
| Capacity |
|
| Construction | |
| Built | 1766 |
| Opened | 1931 |
| Renovated | 1924, 1931, 1966, 1972 |
| Demolished | 2002 |
The Westminster Theatre was a theatre in London, on Palace Street in Westminster.
The structure on the site was originally built as the Charlotte Chapel in 1766, by William Dodd with money from his wife Mary Perkins. [1] Through Peter Richard Hoare it came into the hands of the family owning Hoare's Bank, and was called St Peter's Chapel. [2]
It was altered and given a new frontage, by John Stanley Coombe Beard for use as a cinema, St James's Picture Theatre, opened in 1924. The conversion was by a group with court connections including Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood. The film shown at the opening was Rob Roy . [3] [4]
The Picture Theatre then became a venue for drama in 1931 after radical alterations, at the hands of Alderson Burrell Horne (1863–1953). Horne was known in the theatrical world as Anmer Hall, and also used the stage name Waldo Wright. [5] In the mid 1930s Kathleen Mary Robinson came from Australia to study theatre production and she helped the producer Osmund Daltry. She also directed and the actors included Michael Wilding and the later playwright Emlyn Williams. [6]
The theatre was bought by the Westminster Memorial Trust in April 1946 as a memorial to men in Moral Re-Armament (MRA) who gave their lives in World War II. The Trust held it for more than 30 years. Besides putting on productions for the MRA, it was let out to other companies. [7] It was the base for Furndel Productions, run by actor Alan Badel and producer William Anthony Furness, for example with The Ark in 1959. [8] Influential on the MRA productions was Peter Howard, as playwright and also in changing the running of the theatre, where he replaced amateurs of the early period in the 1940s by professional technicians, and brought in the director Henry Cass. [9]
In 1966 the theatre was remodelled, with the addition of an arts centre, after MRA fundraising in 1965. Further work was carried out in 1972, with the addition of two floors. The premises were decorated with a work of art by professor Lennart Segerstråle called "Barbed wire or reconciliation". [10] [11] [12]
MRA withdrew from drama at the Westminster Theatre in 1990, for reasons of cost. [12] Plans were drawn up to extensively remodel the theatre in the early 2000s. A campaign by the owner to save the theatre ended when a fire destroyed 75% of the building on 27 June 2002, with demolition coming soon afterwards. In May 2009, plans for a new 314-seat theatre and a smaller cabaret stage, flats and a restaurant, all situated on the site of the original building, were given approval by Westminster City Council. [13] The new St James Theatre (now The Other Palace) opened in September 2012. [14]
Westminster is a cathedral city and the main settlement of the London Borough of the City of Westminster in Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and much of the West End cultural centre including the entertainment precinct of West End Theatre.
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda, was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louverture first fought and allied with Spanish forces against Saint-Domingue Royalists, then joined with Republican France, becoming Governor-General-for-life of Saint-Domingue, and lastly fought against Bonaparte's republican troops. As a revolutionary leader, Louverture displayed military and political acumen that helped transform the fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement. Along with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Louverture is now known as one of the "Fathers of Haiti".
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was the first Haitian Emperor, leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Initially regarded as governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I (1804–1806) by generals of the Haitian Revolutionary army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. He spearheaded the resistance against French rule of Saint-Domingue, and eventually became the architect of the 1804 massacre of the remaining French residents of newly independent Haiti, including some supporters of the revolution. Alongside Toussaint Louverture, he has been referred to as one of the fathers of the nation of Haiti. Dessalines was directly responsible for the country, and, under his rule, Haiti became the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery.
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognising achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.
Harry Stewart Fleetwood Andrews, CBE was an English actor known for his film portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Regimental Sergeant Major Wilson in The Hill (1965) alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the 1966 BAFTA Award for Best British Actor. The first of his more than 80 film appearances was in The Red Beret in 1953.
Moral Re-Armament (MRA) was an international moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman headed MRA for 23 years until his death in 1961. In 2001, the movement was renamed Initiatives of Change.
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 but not produced until 1942 because the Second World War began while it was in rehearsal, and the British theatres closed. The title is drawn from a song in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that urges carpe diem. The play has been frequently revived in Britain, the US and beyond.
Michael John Edward Culver was a British actor. He played Captain Needa in The Empire Strikes Back.
Lieutenant General The Right Honourable Sir Thomas Maitland was a British soldier and British colonial governor. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Haddington from 1790 to 1796, 1802–06 and 1812–13. He was made a Privy Councillor on 23 November 1803. He was the second surviving son of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale, and the younger brother of James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale. Maitland never married.
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution is a 1938 book by Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James, and is a history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804.
Orlando Martins was a pioneering Yoruba Nigerian film and stage actor. In the late 1940s, he was one of Britain's most prominent and leading black actors, and in a poll conducted in 1947, he was listed among Britain's top 15 favourite actors.
John Bernard Adie Barton, CBE, was a British theatre director and teacher whose close association with the Royal Shakespeare Company spanned more than half a century.
The Incorporated Stage Society, commonly known as the Stage Society, was an English theatre society with limited membership which mounted private Sunday performances of new and experimental plays, mainly at the Royal Court Theatre but also at other London West End venues. Founded in 1899 "to regenerate the Drama", it followed the Independent Theatre Society in this activity. Its plays particularly included the first performances of plays that had been banned for public performance by the Lord Chamberlain. George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville Barker, St. John Hankin, Gilbert Murray and Clifford Bax were all involved with the company.
The following is a timeline of the history of London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom.
Peter Godfrey was an English actor and film director. Founder of the experimental Gate Theatre Salon in 1925, with his first wife Molly Veness, he staged London's first expressionistic production in the following year. He went into partnership with Velona Pilcher in 1927 and together they opened the Gate Theatre Studio in Villiers Street, Charing Cross. Eventually moving to Hollywood, he established a career as a film actor and director.
Cyril Lionel Robert James, who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist, Trotskyist activist and Marxist writer. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts. His work is a staple of Marxism, and he figures as a pioneering and influential voice in postcolonial literature. A tireless political activist, James is the author of the 1937 work World Revolution outlining the history of the Communist International, which stirred debate in Trotskyist circles, and in 1938 he wrote on the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins.
Peter James Sisam was an English photographer and film director. From his undergraduate days, when he joined the Oxford Group, he was involved with the Moral Re-Armament movement.
Freedom is a play first performed by an African cast at the Westminster Theatre, London in 1955. It is set in an imaginary West African country, Bokondo, under colonial rule, and concerns a nationalist independence movement.
Alderson Burrell Horne (1863–1953) was a British theatre director, under the pseudonym Anmer Hall.
Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History is a three-act play about Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution, written by C. L. R. James in 1934.
