Original Shaftesbury Theatre

Original Shaftesbury Theatre

Shaftesbury Theatre (from the Pall Mall Gazette, 1888)
Address	Shaftesbury Avenue Westminster, London
Coordinates	51°30′45″N 0°07′48″W / 51.5125°N 0.1301°W / 51.5125; -0.1301
Owner	John Lancaster
Designation	Demolished
Type	West End theatre
Capacity	1,196
Current use	Car park
Construction
Opened	20 October 1888
Closed	1941
Rebuilt	1888 - 1941
Architect	C. J. Phipps

The Original Shaftesbury Theatre was a theatre in central London, England, between 1888 and 1941. It was built by John Lancaster for his wife, Ellen Wallis, a well-known Shakespearean actress. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps and built by Messrs. Patman and Fotheringham at a cost of £20,000 and opened with a production of As You Like It on 20 October 1888.

The theatre had a stage of 28' 6" square. The capacity was 1,196. It was located on the south side of Shaftesbury Avenue, just east of Gerrard Place.

The theatre's first big hit was The Belle of New York produced by the prominent Broadway producer, George W. Lederer, which opened on 12 April 1898 and ran for an extremely successful 697 performances. In 1908–09 H. B. Irving became the lessee and manager of the theatre and presented a successful season of plays. Robert Courtneidge was lessee for most of the early years of the 20th century and produced mostly comic operas and Edwardian musical comedies, including Tom Jones (1907), the record-setting hit The Arcadians (1909), Oh! Oh! Delphine! (1913), The Pearl Girl and many others. In 1914 Basil Rathbone appeared at the Shaftesbury as the Dauphin in Shakespeare's Henry V.

Courtneidge's successors, from 1917 to 1921 were George Grossmith, Jr. and Edward Laurillard. The produced a number of shows, including Arlette by Claude M. Ronald and L. Bouvet (1917); Baby Bunting by Fred Thompson and Worton David (1919); The Great Lover, by Leo Ditrichstein, Frederic Hatton and Fanny Hatton (1920); and Out to Win, by Roland Pertwee and Dion Clayton Calthrop (1921).