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| Address | Inner Circle London, NW1 United Kingdom |
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| Coordinates | 51°31′44″N0°09′18″W / 51.529°N 0.155°W Coordinates: 51°31′44″N0°09′18″W / 51.529°N 0.155°W |
| Public transit |  Baker Street |
| Owner | Regent's Park Theatre Ltd. |
| Type | Open-air theatre, with resident company |
| Capacity | 1,256 seats |
| Production | Summer repertory |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1932 |
| Rebuilt | 1999 |
| Website | |
| openairtheatre | |
Regent's Park Open Air Theatre is an open-air theatre in Regent's Park in central London.
Established in 1932, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is one of the largest theatres in London (1,256 seats) and is situated in Queen Mary’s Gardens in Regent’s Park, one of London’s Royal Parks. [1] The theatre’s annual 18-week season is attended by over 140,000 people each year. In 2017, the theatre was named London Theatre of the Year in The Stage Awards, [2] and received the Highly Commended Award for London Theatre of the Year in 2021. [3]
| Date | Production | Award |
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1983 | As You Like It |
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1991 | The Boys From Syracuse |
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2009 | Hello, Dolly! |
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2010 | Into The Woods |
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2011 | Crazy For You |
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2013 | The Sound of Music |
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2013 | To Kill a Mockingbird |
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2016 | Jesus Christ Superstar |
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2017 | On The Town |
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2018 | Little Shop of Horrors |
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2019 | Jesus Christ Superstar (Barbican) |
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2019 | Evita |
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†also for The Crucible
In 1932 The New Theatre (now the Noel Coward) was left without a show after the early closure of a play by Mussolini. Robert Atkins and Sydney Carroll presented a ‘black and white’ production of Twelfth Night [11] which subsequently transferred to a makeshift theatre in Regents Park, thus establishing Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. [12]
Many stars of the future have performed at the theatre. [13] One of the first was in 1936 when Vivien Leigh played Anne Boleyn in Henry VIII, three years before she found fame in Gone with the Wind. Subsequent household names to appear at Regent’s Park include: Bernard Bresslaw, Judi Dench – who would go on to have a long relationship with the theatre and is currently Patron – Kate O’Mara, Lesley Garrett, Richard E. Grant, Ralph Fiennes, [14] Hugh Bonneville, Damian Lewis, [15] Eileen Atkins, Benedict Cumberbatch, [16] Sheridan Smith [17] and many more.
In 1939, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and the Windmill Theatre were the only two theatres to remain open throughout the War. [18]
In 1963 David Conville and David William established the New Shakespeare Company as a non-profit distributing company. [19] Laurence Olivier was one of the key investors. Conville remained associated with the theatre for 50 years, and following his death in 2018 Artist Lee Simmons was commissioned to design a sculpture that was erected in the grounds of the theatre. [20]
The New Shakespeare Company became Regents Park Theatre Ltd in 2010, acknowledging the move away from producing Shakespeare-only plays. [21]
The theatre’s current fixed amphitheatre-style auditorium was constructed in 1974 with numerous refurbishments leading to the venue as it stands today – which boasts the longest bar in the West End.
There have been many significant productions in the theatre’s history including a gala performance in celebration of the Golden Jubilee (attended by HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh), the theatre’s first original musical, Bashville. [22]
In 2015 the theatre launched its own digital archive to enable audiences to explore all of the productions across its history. [23] The archive continues to be updated.
| Period | Management [24] |
|---|---|
1932-1939 | Sydney Carroll, Impresario; Robert Atkins, Artistic Director |
1940-1961 | Robert Atkins, Artistic & Managing Director |
1962-1966 | David Conville, Managing Director; David William, Artistic Director |
1967-1973 | David Conville, Managing Director; Richard Digby Day, Artistic Director |
1974-1976 | David Conville, Managing Director; Mervyn Willis, Artistic Director |
1977-1986 | David Conville, Artistic & Managing Director |
1987-2007 | Ian Talbot, Artistic & Managing Director |
2008-2021 | William Village, Executive Director; Timothy Sheader, Artistic Director |
2021–present | James Pidgeon, Executive Director; Timothy Sheader, Artistic Director |
In 2007 Timothy Sheader was appointed Artistic Director [25] and joined Executive Director William Village as Joint Chief Executive. They embarked on programming that would extend the plays presented at the theatre beyond the works of Shakespeare. The first of these was The Importance of Being Earnest. Other works included The Crucible, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Pride and Prejudice, Hobson’s Choice, All My Sons, The Seagull and Peter Pan.
In 2008 A Midsummer Night’s Dream re-imagined for everyone aged six and over [26] was the first ‘re-imagined’ production at the venue especially created for children. This was followed by various subsequent ‘re-imagined’ titles including Macbeth (2010) Pericles (2011), and Oliver Twist (2017).
Timothy Sheader and William Village also produced a series of critically acclaimed musicals including Hello, Dolly!, Into the Woods, Crazy for You, The Sound of Music, Porgy and Bess, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Jesus Christ Superstar, On The Town, Little Shop of Horrors, Evita and Carousel. Shakespeare remained part of the programming and, in 2016, Michelle Terry, who went on to become Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, played the title role of Henry V. In 2016, the co-production of Michael Morpurgo’s Running Wild [27] (with Chichester Festival Theatre) brought new writing to the Open Air Theatre; the production included young people drawn from the local community. Two years later, the venue would co-produce its first opera with English National Opera: The Turn of the Screw. [28] This partnership led to the 2019 production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel [29] which included an ensemble of children from the Pimlico Musical Foundation.
In 2020, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre was the first to open during the coronavirus pandemic with a socially distanced production of Jesus Christ Superstar: The Concert. [30]
Various Open Air Theatre productions have gone on to be presented beyond the theatre itself. The first overseas transfer was of the 1956 productions of Hamlet and Twelfth Night when the theatre was invited to perform at the Baalbek Festival in Lebanon. In 2011, Crazy For You transferred to the West End’s Novello Theatre [31] and, the following year, Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel re-directed their 2010 production of Into The Woods [32] in Central Park, New York for The Public Theatre.
Productions that have toured the UK following seasons at the Open Air Theatre include: The Pirates of Penzance, High Society, To Kill A Mockingbird [33] (also a month-long residency at the Barbican Centre [34] ), Lord of the Flies, [35] Running Wild and Pride and Prejudice. [36]
The most widely seen production from Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is the 2016 production, Jesus Christ Superstar. After a second sell-out season in 2017, the production played a limited engagement at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2018 [37] before transferring to the Barbican in 2019. [38] The show is currently touring North America. [39]
Jesus Christ Superstar is a sung-through rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Loosely based on the Gospels' accounts of the Passion, the work interprets the psychology of Jesus and other characters, with much of the plot centered on Judas, who is dissatisfied with the direction in which Jesus is steering his disciples. Contemporary attitudes, sensibilities and slang pervade the rock opera's lyrics, and ironic allusions to modern life are scattered throughout the depiction of political events. Stage and film productions accordingly contain many intentional anachronisms.
Dame Eileen June Atkins,, is an English actress and occasional screenwriter. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford. She is also a three-time Olivier Award winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 and Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001.
Jenna Russell is an English actress and singer. She has appeared on the stage in London in both musicals and dramas, as well as appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She performed the role of Dot in Sunday in the Park with George in the West End and on Broadway, receiving the Tony Award nomination and the 2006 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role. She has also appeared in several television series, including Born and Bred and EastEnders.
Kevin Gerard Wallace is an Irish theatre producer.
James Edward Carter is an English actor, best known for his role as Mr Carson in the ITV historical drama series Downton Abbey (2010–2015), which earned him four nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (2012–2015). He reprised the role in the feature films Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) and starred as the main villain Rookery in The Little Vampire and its 2017 remake.
Tom Morton-Smith is an English playwright.
Samantha Spiro is an English actress and singer. She is best known for portraying Barbara Windsor in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and the television films Cor, Blimey! and Babs, DI Vivien Friend in M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team, Melessa Tarly in the HBO series Game of Thrones and Maureen Groff in Sex Education. She has won two Laurence Olivier Awards.
Paul Arditti is a British sound designer, working mainly in the UK and the US. He specialises in designing sound systems and sound scores for theatre. He has won awards for his work on both musicals and plays, including a Tony Award, an Olivier Award, a Drama Desk Award and a BroadwayWorld.com Fans' Choice Award for Billy Elliot the Musical.
Alex Gaumond is a Canadian actor, singer, songwriter and filmmaker best known for his involvement in West End theatre. He plays series regular gendarme Caron, the chief of police in Sainte Victoire, in the Channel 5 television series The Madame Blanc Mysteries, starring Sally Lindsay.
Ryan Ellsworth is a Canadian-born British actor. A graduate of LAMDA, he made his professional stage debut in Declan Donnellan's production of Antigone at the Old Vic Theatre in 1999.
Timothy Sheader is a British theatre director. Sheader read Law with French at the University of Birmingham before moving into a career in theatre. Since 2007, he has been Artistic Director at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.
Eleanor Winifred Worthington Cox is an English actress from Merseyside best known for portraying Matilda Wormwood in Matilda the Musical for which 10-year-old Eleanor won a 2012 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, becoming the youngest Olivier Award winner in any category at the time. She received a nomination for a British Academy Television Award for playing Janet Hodgson in The Enfield Haunting. She is also known for portraying Polly Renfrew in the CBBC TV adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson's Hetty Feather. She currently stars in the Sky Atlantic series Britannia.
Matthew Dunster is an English theatre director, playwright and actor. He was the Associate Director of the Young Vic from 2005 to 2009 and the Associate Director of Shakespeare’s Globe from 2015 to 2017. His production of Love and Money by Dennis Kelly was nominated for the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre in 2006 and his production of Mogadishu by Vivienne Franzmann was nominated for that same award in 2012. In January 2016 Dunster was appointed as a patron to the Arts Educational Schools, London.
Matthew Tennyson is an English actor of stage and screen. He won the Evening Standard Award for Outstanding Newcomer in 2012.
Jon Bausor is an international stage and costume designer for Theatre, Dance and Opera. Based in London, he is an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and designed the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games.
Tyrone Huntley is a British actor, best known for his work in musical theatre.
David Henry Conville OBE was a British actor and director at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.
David Hunter is a British actor and singer best known for his work in musical theatre. He is originally from Warrington. Hunter played Dr Pomatter in the Tony Award winning musical Waitress at The Adelphi Theatre, West End from 2019 to 2020. He trained at The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).
Courtney Bowman is an English stage actress and singer. She originated the role of Fatimah in Everybody's Talking About Jamie at the Crucible and Apollo Theatre. She played Anne Boleyn in Six at the Arts Theatre, Lyric Theatre and Vaudeville Theatre and Elle Woods in Legally Blonde at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Bowman currently stars in Pretty Woman: The Musical as Kit De Luca at the Savoy Theatre.
Emilia is a play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm inspired by the life of the 17th century poet and feminist Emilia Bassano, as well as her speculated role as William Shakespeare's "Dark Lady."
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