THEATRE COMPANIES
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Also: WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE The Royal Shakespeare Company; THEATRE PRODUCERS;
THEATRE RELATED; MENU
Chickenshed Theatre Company
Chickenshed Theatre Company
Location: 290 Chase Side, Southgate,
N14 4PE
Website: www.chickenshed.org.uk
Common Stock
Frank Whitten (1942-2011), a New Zealander,
was a student at L.A.M.D.A.. Following
his graduation, he was invited to stay on as a tutor. He became the Academy's Vice-Principal by
1970. He developed the belief that the
students should be represented upon the college's governing body. This desire was blocked. He resigned his position and founded the
Common Stock theatre company with Dorothy Bromiley, Andrew McAlpine, and
Chattie Salaman.
The Elephant Theatre Company
During his adolescence Syd Golder
(1923-2007) started a career in crime.
At the age of sixteen, he was sent to Feltham Borstal, where he
encountered the young Brendan Behan. In
1972 Golder was released after eight years of a fifteen-year sentence for a
bank robbery. He took a job as a
handyman at R.A.D.A.. Watching the
classes, he realised that the students were learning to do what he had been
doing for years when in court - act. In
the late 1970s he decided to become an actor and set up The Elephant Theatre
Company, a fringe company that operated for thirty years. The company - derived its name from The
Elephant on the New Kent Road, where Golder's father had worked as a stagehand
- was initially based at South London Polytechnic,1 eventually
becoming based at The King's Head pub is Islington. Under Golder, the company produced over 500
plays.
Location: 115 Upper Street, N1 1QN
(blue, red)
1. The institution's principal campus was located at Elephant &
Company.
Joint Stock Theatre Company
In 1973 William Gaskill (1930-2016) left The
Royal Court Theatre in order to be one of the co-founders of the Joint
Stock Theatre Company.
The London Traverse Theatre Company
Jim Haynes was an American who had settled
in Edinburgh. There, he had opened the
Paperback Shop, helped revitalised the city's festival, and founded the
Traverse Theatre Company. Jack Henry
Moore (1940-2014), a gifted Oklahoman, became his close associate. Moore was openly gay. This was a factor in the two men's decision
to move to London. With the backing of
the Arts Council, they established the London Traverse Theatre Company. This was based in the Jeannetta Cochrane
Theatre. The productions that
transferred to the West End included Joe Orton's Loot (1965).
Location: The Cochrane Theatre,
48 Southampton Row, WC1B 4AP (blue, purple)
The Royal Shakespeare Company
The director Peter Hall (1930-2017) founded
the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961.
In 1963 it staged The Wars of The Roses, John Barton's conflation
of the Henry VI plays and Richard III. In 1968 Hall resigned. Hall was succeeded by Trevor Nunn.
The actor Patrick Stewart joined the Company
in 1966 and was for many years one of its stalwarts. His colleagues included Ian McKillen. Stewart went on to star in the television
series Star Trek: The Next Generation as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and in
the X-Men movie series as Professor Charles Xavier. In the latter, McKellen played his arch rival
Magneto. In 2015 Stewart opined that one
of the reasons that they were so well-suited to play such roles was that as
stage actors they had used heightened language to plays villains, tyrants,
kings and other roles were detached from ordinary life.
Location: The Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y
8DS (blue, turquoise)
Website: www.rsc.org.uk
The Unity Theatre
Bob Hoskins (1942-2014) was not interested
in theatre, however, he was a friend of the actor Roger Frost. In 1968 the former accompanied the latter to
an audition that The Unity Theatre was conducting. While the session was being held the theatre
bar was open. Hoskins had a number of
drinks. The director mistook him for someone
who was seeking to be seen. Hoskins, who
had become slightly drunk, allowed himself to be ushered into the room where
the auditions were being held. Despite
never having acted before, he delivered a performance that secured him the role
that was being cast.
Location: 147 Myddleton Avenue,
Finsbury Avenue, N4 2FP. The Trust.
Unity
Mews, NW1 1NP.
The theatre was on the site. (orange, brown)
Website: https://unitytheatre.org.uk
The Young Vic
When Frank Dunlop established The Young
Vic it was intended to be a temporary, five-year-long project. Its initial premises were a former butcher s
shop in Southwark.
Location: 66 The Cut, SE1 8LZ
Website: www.youngvic.org
David Backhouse 2024