Aldwych Theatre
Aldwych Theatre in 2006
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| Address |
Aldwych London, WC2 United Kingdom |
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| Coordinates | 51°30′47″N 0°07′07″W / 51.512948°N 0.118634°W |
| Public transit |
 Covent Garden
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| Owner | James Nederlander |
| Designation | Grade II |
| Type | West End theatre |
| Capacity | 1,200 |
| Production | Beautiful: The Carole King Musical |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1905 |
| Architect | W. G. R. Sprague |
| Website | |
| http://www.aldwychtheatre.com | |
The Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Aldwych in the City of Westminster. It was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200 on three levels, a fairly large auditorium.
The theatre was constructed in the newly built Aldwych as a pair with the Waldorf Theatre, now known as the Novello Theatre. Both buildings were designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by W. G. R. Sprague. The Aldwych Theatre was funded by Seymour Hicks in association with the American impresario Charles Frohman, and built by Walter Wallis of Balham.
The theatre opened on 23 December 1905 with a production of Blue Bell, a new version of Hicks's popular pantomime Bluebell in Fairyland. In 1906, Hicks's The Beauty of Bath, followed in 1907 by The Gay Gordons, played at the theatre. In February 1913 the theatre was used by Serge Diaghilev and Vaslav Nijinsky for the first rehearsals of Le Sacre du Printemps before its première in Paris during May. In 1920, Basil Rathbone played Major Wharton in The Unknown.
From 1923 to 1933, the theatre was the home of the series of twelve farces, known as the Aldwych farces, most of which were written by Ben Travers. Members of the regular company for these farces included Ralph Lynn, Tom Walls, Ethel Coleridge, Gordon James, Mary Brough, Winifred Shotter and Robertson Hare. In 1933, Richard Tauber presented and starred in a new version of Das Dreimäderlhaus at the Aldwych under the title Lilac Time. From the mid-1930s until about 1960, the theatre was owned by the Abrahams family.
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