Arts Theatre
Arts Theatre in July 2016
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| Address | Great Newport Street London, WC2 United Kingdom |
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| Coordinates | 51°30′43″N 0°07′39″W / 51.511944°N 0.1275°W |
| Public transit |
 Leicester Square
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| Owner | Consolidated Development |
| Operator | JJ Goodman Ltd. |
| Type | West End theatre |
| Capacity | 350 |
| Production | Dirty Great Love Story |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 5 June 1913 |
| Architect | P. Morley Holder |
| Website | |
| www |
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The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It now operates as the West End's smallest commercial receiving house.
It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre censorship by the Lord Chamberlain's office. It was one of a small number of committed, independent theatre companies, including the Hampstead Everyman, the Gate Theatre Studio and the Q Theatre, which took risks by producing a diverse range of new and experimental plays, or plays that were thought to be commercially non-viable on the West End. The theatrical producer Norman Marshall referred to these as ‘The Other Theatre’ in his 1947 book of the same name.
The theatre opened with a revue by Herbert Farjeon entitled Picnic, produced by Harold Scott and with music by Beverley Nichols. Its first important production was Young Woodley by John Van Druten, staged in 1928, which later transferred to the Savoy Theatre when the Lord Chamberlain's ban was lifted. In 1938 a four-week revival of the Stokes brothers' Oscar Wilde, starring Francis L. Sullivan and produced by Ronald Adam, opened on 25 October. This coincided with a Broadway production of the play. In 1942 Alec Clunes and John Hanau took over the running of the theatre and for ten years produced a wide range of plays, winning a reputation as a 'pocket national theatre'. In 1946 Clunes teamed with author Peter Elstob to raise £20,000, which eventually put the theatre on a sound financial footing.
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