New Ambassadors Theatre (1999–2007) | |
Address | West Street London, WC2 United Kingdom |
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Coordinates | 51°30′47″N0°07′40″W / 51.51292°N 0.12785°W |
Public transit | Covent Garden; Leicester Square |
Owner | ATG Entertainment |
Designation | Grade II |
Type | West End theatre |
Capacity | 444 |
Production | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button |
Construction | |
Opened | 5 June 1913 |
Architect | W. G. R. Sprague |
Website | |
Ambassadors Theatre website |
The Ambassadors Theatre (formerly the New Ambassadors Theatre), is a West End theatre located in West Street, near Cambridge Circus on Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster. It is one of the smallest of the West End theatres, seating a maximum of 444, with 195 people in the dress circle and 251 in the stalls.
The theatre was, along with the adjacent St Martin's conceived by their architect, W. G. R. Sprague, as companions, born at the same time in 1913, but the First World War interrupted the construction of the latter for three years. The Ambassadors was built with the intention of being an intimate, smaller theatre and is situated opposite the renowned restaurant The Ivy, favourite haunt of the theatrical elite.
The theatre was Grade II listed by English Heritage in March 1973. [1]
In 1996, the venue was bought by its namesake the Ambassador Theatre Group, now the largest operator of theatres in the West End. It was first split into two small spaces, by creating a false floor at circle level, and used by the Royal Court. Then in 1999 the venue was returned to its original design, [2] renamed the New Ambassadors and hosted niche works and plays not normally seen outside of smaller fringe venues. However, within a few years the theatre had largely reverted to playing material seen as more commercially viable for its location in the West End.
On 4 April 2007 it was announced that ATG had sold the venue to Stephen Waley-Cohen, who renamed the venue The Ambassadors as it once was, and began an extensive programme of refurbishments. In 2014, Waley-Cohen announced plans to sell the Ambassadors to Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, who said it intended to rename the theatre after Stephen Sondheim once the sale was completed. [3] The sale was later postponed pending redevelopment approval, [4] and was ultimately cancelled in November 2018. [5] In December 2018, Waley-Cohen instead sold the theatre back to ATG for £12 million, more than twice what Mackintosh was slated to pay. [6]
Vivien Leigh made her West End debut in the Ambassadors, starring in The Mask of Virtue (1935); this was the play in which Laurence Olivier first saw her perform. [2]
The theatre's most famous production is Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap , which showed from 1952 to 1974 before moving next door to St. Martin's Theatre, where it is still running.
After its purchase by the Ambassador Theatre Group under producer Sonia Friedman, productions included Some Explicit Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill, Spoonface Steinberg by Lee Hall, Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett and starring John Hurt, and was the West End's first home of Marie Jones' Stones in His Pockets and The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. [2]
Recent productions have included the multi-award-winning production of John Doyle's Sweeney Todd which subsequently transferred to Broadway, Ying Tong – A Walk with the Goons, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Journey's End and the world première of Kate Betts' On the Third Day which won the Channel 4 television series The Play's the Thing. In 2006, the theatre played host to the landmark revival of Peter Hall's production of Waiting for Godot which ran for a strictly limited autumn season.
Recent productions include the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Little Shop of Horrors , the Bush Theatre's production of Whipping it Up, starring Richard Wilson and Robert Bathurst, and Love Song, starring Cillian Murphy and Neve Campbell (November 2006 to February 2007).
In September 2007, renowned dance show Stomp transferred to the theatre for a ten year run, which had its last performance in January 2018. [7]
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Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer and theatre owner notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York Times. He is the producer of shows including Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, and Hamilton.
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. Based on the novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, it tells the tragic story of beautiful soprano Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious but disfigured musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.
The Sondheim Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue on the corner of Wardour Street in the City of Westminster, London. It opened as the Queen's Theatre on 8 October 1907, as a twin to the neighbouring Hicks Theatre which had opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W. G. R. Sprague. The theatre was Grade II listed by English Heritage in June 1972.
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Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by actor/manager Charles Wyndham. Located on Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, it was designed c. 1898 by W. G. R. Sprague, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916. It was designed to seat 759 patrons on three levels; later refurbishment increased this to four seating levels. The theatre was Grade II* listed by English Heritage in September 1960.
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Julia Kathleen Nancy McKenzie is an English actress, singer, presenter, and theatre director. She has premièred leading roles written by both Alan Ayckbourn and Stephen Sondheim. On television, she is known for her BAFTA Award nominated role as Hester Fields in the sitcom Fresh Fields (1984–1986) and its sequel French Fields (1989–1991), and as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple (2009–2013).
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ATG Entertainment formerly The Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), is a major international live entertainment organisation headquartered in the United Kingdom, with offices in Woking, London, New York, Sydney, Mannheim and Cologne. ATG's key operations comprise three inter-related activities: venue ownership and management, ticketing and marketing operations, and show productions.
Trafalgar Theatre is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1930 with interiors in the Art Deco style as the Whitehall Theatre; it regularly staged comedies and revues. It was converted into a television and radio studio in the 1990s, before returning to theatrical use in 2004 as Trafalgar Studios, the name it bore until 2020, with the auditorium converted to two studio spaces. It re-opened in 2021 following a major multi-million pound project to reinstate it to its original single-auditorium design.
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Sir Stephen Harry Waley-Cohen, 2nd Baronet is an English theatre owner-manager and producer, following a career as a businessman and financial journalist. He manages the St. Martin's Theatre in London's West End and is the current producer of the world's longest running play The Mousetrap. He was Chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) Council.
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