Playhouse

Built in 1866 as the Star Music Hall, the Liverpool Playhouse became a full-time repertory theatre in 1911, and was the oldest repertory company in the country when it was sadly wound up in 1999.

The Playhouse’s acting roster was among the finest in the country – including Robert Donat, Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, John Thaw, Anthony Hopkins and many, many more – and the rich variety of the repertory programme formed many generations of committed theatregoers. It was here that Noël Coward first worked with Gertrude Lawrence, as child actors, and the Playhouse was the wartime home of the Old Vic company, who decamped, perhaps unwisely, to what was to be Britain’s second most bombarded city.

The latter part of the twentieth century featured many high points, perhaps the most notorious being the tenure of the Gang of Four – Alan Bleasdale, Chris Bond, Bill Morrison and Willy Russell – a brief but dazzlingly creative period which spawned, among many others, Russell’s international smash hit, Blood Brothers.

Since 2004 the Playhouse, like the Everyman, has been predominantly a producing theatre. More stately than the Everyman, yet intimate in its own way, the Playhouse has been the home of classic drama, from ancient to modern, presented with the highest production values, such as the recently announced production starring Kim Cattrall and Jeffery Kissoon in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra to be staged in October 2010. Over the last few years, however, with productions like Proper Clever, Once Upon A Time At The Adelphi, Ghost Stories, and Canary, the Playhouse has also once again become home to new writing and world premières.

recent playhouse productions