 | |
| Coordinates | 51°29′55″N0°08′27″W / 51.49857°N 0.14091°W Coordinates: 51°29′55″N0°08′27″W / 51.49857°N 0.14091°W |
|---|---|
| Capacity |
|
| Construction | |
| Built | 1766 |
| Opened | 1931 |
| Renovated | 1924, 1931, 1966, 1972 |
| Demolished | 2002 |
The Westminster Theatre was a theatre in London, on Palace Street in Westminster.
The structure on the site was originally built as the Charlotte Chapel in 1766, by William Dodd with money from his wife Mary Perkins. [1] Through Peter Richard Hoare it came into the hands of the family owning Hoare's Bank, and was called St Peter's Chapel. [2]
It was altered and given a new frontage, by John Stanley Coombe Beard for use as a cinema, St James's Picture Theatre, opened in 1924. The conversion was by a group with court connections including Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood. The film shown at the opening was Rob Roy . [3] [4]
The Picture Theatre then became a venue for drama in 1931 after radical alterations, at the hands of Alderson Burrell Horne (1863–1953). Horne was known in the theatrical world as Anmer Hall, and also used the stage name Waldo Wright. [5]
The theatre was bought by the Westminster Memorial Trust in April 1946 as a memorial to men in Moral Re-Armament (MRA) who gave their lives in World War II. The Trust held it for more than 30 years. Besides putting on productions for the MRA, it was let out to other companies. [6] It was the base for Furndel Productions, run by actor Alan Badel and producer William Anthony Furness, for example with The Ark in 1959. [7] Influential on the MRA productions was Peter Howard, as playwright and also in changing the running of the theatre, where he replaced amateurs of the early period in the 1940s by professional technicians, and brought in the director Henry Cass. [8]
In 1966 the theatre was remodelled, with the addition of an arts centre, after MRA fundraising in 1965. Further work was carried out in 1972, with the addition of two floors. The premises were decorated with a work of art by professor Lennart Segerstråle called "Barbed wire or reconciliation". [9] [10] [11]
MRA withdrew from drama at the Westminster Theatre in 1990, for reasons of cost. [11] Plans were drawn up to extensively remodel the theatre in the early 2000s. A campaign by the owner to save the theatre ended when a fire destroyed 75% of the building on 27 June 2002, with demolition coming soon afterwards. In May 2009, plans for a new 314-seat theatre and a smaller cabaret stage, flats and a restaurant, all situated on the site of the original building, were given approval by Westminster City Council. [12] The new St James Theatre (now The Other Palace) opened in September 2012. [13]
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster, in central London, England.
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louverture first fought against the French, then for them, and then finally against France again for the cause of Haitian independence. As a revolutionary leader, Louverture displayed military and political acumen that helped transform the fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement. Louverture is now known as the "Father of Haiti".
Sir Charles BarryFRS RA was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.
St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in the United Kingdom. It gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council, the office of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, as well as the London residence of several minor members of the royal family.
Buckingham Palace Garden is a large private park attached to the London residence of the monarch. It is situated to the rear (west) of Buckingham Palace, occupying a 17 hectares site in the City of Westminster and forms the largest private garden in the capital. It is bounded by Constitution Hill to the north, Hyde Park Corner to the west, Grosvenor Place to the south-west, and the Royal Mews, Queen's Gallery, and Buckingham Palace itself to the south and east.
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 but not produced until 1942 because the Second World War began while it was in rehearsal, and the British theatres closed. The title is drawn from a song in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that urges carpe diem. The play has been frequently revived in Britain, the US and beyond.
Michael Culver is an English actor. He was born in Hampstead, London, the son of actor Roland Culver and casting director Daphne Rye. He was educated at Gresham's School.
Lieutenant General The Right Honourable Sir Thomas Maitland was a British soldier and British colonial governor. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Haddington from 1790 to 1796, 1802–06 and 1812–13. He was made a Privy Councillor on 23 November 1803. He was the second surviving son of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale, and the younger brother of James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale. Maitland never married.
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution is a 1938 book by Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James, a history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804. He went to Paris to research this work, where he met Haitian military historian Alfred Auguste Nemours. James's text places the revolution in the context of the French Revolution, and focuses on the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was born a slave but rose to prominence espousing the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality. These ideals, which many French revolutionaries did not maintain consistently with regard to the black humanity of their colonial possessions, were embraced, according to James, with a greater purity by the persecuted blacks of Haiti; such ideals "meant far more to them than to any Frenchman."
Orlando Martins was a pioneering Yoruba Nigerian film and stage actor. In the late 1940s, he was one of Britain's most prominent and leading black actors, and in a poll conducted in 1947, he was listed among Britain's top 15 favorite actors.
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".
Henry Cass was a British director, particularly prolific in film in the horror and comedy genres. Previously an actor, he was also a prolific stage director of classical theatre at the Old Vic in the 1930s.
The following is a list of reportedly haunted locations in the United Kingdom.
The following is a timeline of the history of London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom.
Peter Godfrey was an English actor and film director. Founder of the experimental Gate Theatre Salon in 1925, with his first wife Molly Veness, he staged London's first expressionistic production in the following year. He went into partnership with Velona Pilcher in 1927 and together they opened the Gate Theatre Studio in Villiers Street, Charing Cross. Eventually moving to Hollywood, he established a career as a film actor and director.
Peter James Sisam was an English photographer and film director. From his undergraduate days, when he joined the Oxford Group, he was involved with the Moral Re-Armament movement.
Freedom is a play first performed by an African cast at the Westminster Theatre, London in 1955. It is set in an imaginary West African country, Bokondo, under colonial rule, and concerns a nationalist independence movement.
Alderson Burrell Horne (1863–1953) was a British theatre director, under the pseudonym Anmer Hall.
Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History is a three-act play about Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution, written by C. L. R. James in 1934. In March 1936, the play was staged for two performances in the Westminster Theatre in London's West End by the Stage Society, a private club, to avoid Theatres Act censorship laws. It was directed by Peter Godfrey and starred Paul Robeson in the title role, as well as Orlando Martins as Dutty Boukman, Robert Adams as Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Harry Andrews. It was the first time black professional actors featured in a production written by a black playwright in the UK. The play had been presumed lost until its rediscovery of a draft copy in 2005 by historian Christian Høgsbjerg. The play was published for the first time in 2013 by Duke University Press, with a foreword by Laurent Dubois and an introduction by Christian Høgsbjerg. Toussaint Louverture is perhaps the last major piece of James's work to be published.
