Rose Theatre, Kingston

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Rose Theatre, Kingston

The Rose Theatre, Kingston, London.jpg

The theatre in 2008
Address 24-26 High Street
Location Kingston upon Thames, Greater London
Coordinates 51°24′31″N0°18′27″W / 51.4086°N 0.3075°W / 51.4086; -0.3075 Coordinates: 51°24′31″N0°18′27″W / 51.4086°N 0.3075°W / 51.4086; -0.3075
Public transit Kingston
Owner Kingston Theatre Trust
Type Theatre
Capacity 899
Opened January 16, 2008 (2008-01-16)
Website
www.rosetheatrekingston.org

The Rose Theatre, Kingston is a theatre on Kingston High Street in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. The theatre seats 899 around a wide, thrust stage. [1]

Theatre collaborative form of performing and fine art

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι.

Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Royal borough in United Kingdom

The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is a borough in southwest London, England. The main town is Kingston upon Thames and it includes Surbiton, Chessington, Malden Rushett, New Malden, Tolworth and part of Worcester Park. It is the oldest of the four Royal Boroughs in England. The others are Kensington and Chelsea and Greenwich also in London, and Windsor and Maidenhead. The local authority is Kingston upon Thames London Borough Council.

Contents

It officially opened on 16 January 2008 with Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, with Sir Peter Hall directing. [2] Hall had also directed an "in the raw" production of As You Like It within the shell of the uncompleted building in December 2004. [3] [4]

Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.

Anton Chekhov Russian dramatist, author and physician

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

<i>As You Like It</i> pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility.

Design

The theatre's layout is based on that of the Rose Theatre in London, an Elizabethan theatre that staged the plays of Christopher Marlowe and early plays by Shakespeare. It features a shallow thrust stage. Unlike the original Rose, it makes the Elizabethan design more comfortable by adding a roof and modern seats, rather like the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The front rows of the stalls have no seats; patrons bring cushions instead.

The Rose (theatre) Elizabethan theatre in London

The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), and the theatre at Newington Butts – and the first of several playhouses to be situated in Bankside, Southwark, in a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the City of London's civic authorities.

Christopher Marlowe 16th-century English dramatist, poet and translator

Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Marlowe and who rose to become the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after Marlowe's mysterious early death. Marlowe's plays are known for the use of blank verse and their overreaching protagonists.

Thrust stage open stage

In theatre, a thrust stage is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the audience than a proscenium, while retaining the utility of a backstage area. Entrances onto a thrust are most readily made from backstage, although some theatres provide for performers to enter through the audience using vomitory entrances. A theatre in the round, exposed on all sides to the audience, is without a backstage and relies entirely on entrances in the auditorium or from under the stage.

History

The Rose was a project supported by Peter Hall and broadcaster David Jacobs CBE, who served as chairman of the Kingston Theatre Trust.

David Lewis Jacobs, CBE was a British broadcaster perhaps best known as presenter of the BBC Television 1960s peak-time show Juke Box Jury, and as chairman of the long-running BBC Radio 4 topical forum Any Questions? Earlier radio work included small acting parts: over the years he played himself or presenter characters in film, television and radio productions. Jacobs finally stepped down as a BBC Radio 2 presenter shortly before his death, his career having spanned more than 65 years.

The construction was undertaken with £5m (of the £11m construction cost) support from the local council, involvement from Kingston University, Peter Hall, and the Friends of Kingston Theatre. The shell of the building was provided to the Trust for free by St George plc as one of the concessions for the construction of Charter Quay, a development on the bank of the Thames.

Kingston University university in Kingston upon Thames, London

Kingston University London is a public research university located within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, in South West London, United Kingdom. The university specialises in the arts, design, fashion, science, engineering, and business. It received university status in 1992, before which the institution was known as Kingston Polytechnic. Its roots, however, go back to the Kingston Technical Institute, founded in 1899. The university has four campuses situated in Kingston and Roehampton. Kingston University London, is a member of the Association of MBAs, the European University Association and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

In January 2008, a week after the theatre opened, Hall resigned and it was announced that from April 2008, Stephen Unwin, departing director of English Touring Theatre would take over the role of Artistic Director, while Hall would remain as Director Emeritus. [5]

Stephen Unwin is an English theatre director. Stephen read English at the University of Cambridge, where he directed many student productions, including an award-winning production of Measure for Measure that transferred to the Almeida, where he was awarded an Arts Council Trainee Director’s Bursary, he has since directed over 50 professional productions and 12 operas. For much of the 1980s, he was Associate Director at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and several of his productions transferred to London theatres. He worked with a wide range of leading actors, including Simon Rusell Beale, Tilda Swinton, Ken Stott, and dozens of others. In the early 1990s, he became Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio.

English Touring Theatre (ETT) is a major touring theatre company based in London, England.

On 25 November 2010 the Rose won an award for Commitment to the Community at the Kingston Business Awards. [6] The same week, Sir Peter Hall won the Moscow Art Theatre Golden Seagull award for his contribution to World Theatre at the Evening Standard Awards. [7] [8]

The Rose is supported by the Royal Borough of Kingston (£500,000 annually) and Kingston University (£380,000 annually). However, it receives no funding from Arts Council England.

Rose Theatre productions

The Rose has staged an increasing number of home-grown productions. Some highlights include Love's Labour's Lost , directed by Sir Peter Hall; A Christmas Carol; Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy with Timothy West; Sir Peter Hall’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce with Jane Asher and Nicholas Le Prevost (which later transferred to the West End) in repertoire with Miss Julie ; Treasure Island; Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ; Dumb Show by Joe Penhall; Noël Coward’s Hay Fever with Celia Imrie; Three Musketeers; As You Like It ; Jane Asher returned for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest performed in rep with the premiere of Harley Granville-Barker's Farewell to the Theatre; The Snow Queen; Joely Richardson in The Lady from the Sea ; Alison Steadman in Michael Frayn's Here ; and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

2018

Graduation ceremonies

Kingston University has held its graduation ceremonies at the Rose Theatre since 2010 (students completing their degree in 2009); they were, for many years, previously held at the Royal Albert Hall and in 2009 at the Royal Festival Hall.

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References

  1. ↑ Pearman, Hugh (30 December 2007). "The Rose in full bloom". The Sunday Times . Times Newspapers Ltd . Retrieved 3 January 2012.
  2. ↑ Thaxter, John (4 February 2008). "Uncle Vanya (review)". The Stage . The Stage Newspaper Ltd. Retrieved 3 January 2012.
  3. ↑ Thaxter, John (6 December 2004). "As You Like It (review)". The Stage. The Stage Newspaper Ltd. Retrieved 3 January 2012.
  4. ↑ Billington, Michael (6 December 2004). "Rosy Future". The Guardian . Guardian Media Group . Retrieved 3 January 2012.
  5. ↑ Smith, Alistair (21 January 2008). "Unwin to replace Hall at Rose of Kingston". The Stage. The Stage Newspaper Ltd. Retrieved 3 January 2012.
  6. ↑ List of 2010 winners at Kingston Business Awards website
  7. ↑ Spencer, Charles (29 November 2010). "Evening Standard Theatre Awards: a year to be proud of". Daily Telegraph . Telegraph Media Group . Retrieved 3 January 2012.
  8. ↑ Photograph of Sir Peter Hall with his award from the Evening Standard website
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