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William Burdett-Coutts OBE is the founder and director of theatre and comedy promotion company Assembly, one of the major venue operators at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival. [1] He was the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Riverside Studios in London. [2]
He was born in Zimbabwe, and began his career as a theatre director in Scotland in the late 1970s, before establishing the Assembly Rooms as a fringe theatre venue in 1981, leasing it from Edinburgh Council. [3] The venue has been referred to as the "National Theatre of the Fringe". [4]
Burdett-Coutts came to operate the venue after he was too late to find anywhere else to stage the play he intended to bring to the Fringe, The Madman and the Nun. He was working at the Old Vic at the time. The Assembly Rooms on George Street had previously been home to the Festival Club, but they had vacated the building after finding it unprofitable to operate. This left it available for Burdett-Coutts, and gave him space to host other shows. [5]
Burdett-Coutts fought for the Assembly Rooms to remain a venue only building, against Edinburgh Council's plan to turn the ground floor space into shops and a restaurant. [6]
Burdett-Coutts established the Brighton Comedy Festival and Manchester's Festival of Arts and Television, and directed Glasgow's Mayfest and the Channel 4 Sitcom Festival, [7] [8]
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to theatre, comedy and the arts. [9]
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events.
Jerry Sadowitz is an American-born Scottish stand-up comedian and magician.
The List is a digital guide to arts and entertainment in the United Kingdom.
Richard Demarco CBE is a Scottish artist and promoter of the visual and performing arts.
Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the north bank of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.
The National Theatre of Scotland, established in 2006, is the national theatre company of Scotland. The company has no theatre building of its own; instead it tours work to theatres, village halls, schools and site-specific locations, both at home and internationally.
John Pinder was a New Zealand-born Australian comedy producer and festival director who produced band performances, ran live venues and co-founded three Australian comedy festivals, including Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Circus Oz.
The Assembly Rooms are meeting halls in central Edinburgh, Scotland. Originally solely a meeting place for social gatherings, it is now also used as an arts venue and for public events, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Hogmanay celebrations. There are four rooms, with moveable chairs or tables, that are used year-round and are available for private functions: Music Hall, Ballroom, Supper Room and Edinburgh Suite.
Theatre in Scotland refers to the history of the performing arts in Scotland, or those written, acted and produced by Scots. Scottish theatre generally falls into the Western theatre tradition, although many performances and plays have investigated other cultural areas. The main influences are from North America, England, Ireland and from Continental Europe. Scotland's theatrical arts were generally linked to the broader traditions of Scottish and English-language literature and to British and Irish theatre, American literature and theatrical artists. As a result of mass migration, both to and from Scotland, in the modern period, Scottish literature has been introduced to a global audience, and has also created an increasingly multicultural Scottish theatre.
Jon Ivay is an English writer, director, actor, and producer.
Bryony Kimmings is a British live artist based in London and Cambridgeshire. She is an associate artist of the Soho Theatre, and, in 2016, was commissioned to write The Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer for Complicite Associates.
Laurie Sansom is a British theatre director. He is currently the Artistic Director of Halifax-based theatre company Northern Broadsides.
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is a play based on the 1998 novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. It received its world premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2015, before embarking on a short UK tour. The play is a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre. The production ran at London's National Theatre in August 2016 and was scheduled to transfer to the West End's Duke of York's Theatre in May 2017.
Assembly is a theatre and comedy promotion company, producer and venue operator. It programmes and promotes entertainment events at venues in Edinburgh, London and Brighton, and is the longest-established of the so-called Big Four promoters at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. Year-round audience numbers at Assembly events are more than 500,000, and the company's artistic director is William Burdett-Coutts.
The Gateway Theatre was a Category C listed building in Edinburgh, Scotland, situated on Elm Row at the top of Leith Walk.
Guy Alexander Masterson is a British actor, writer, theatre director, producer and playwright widely known for his solo theatre performances of Under Milk Wood, Animal Farm, and Shylock by Gareth Armstrong. He is a regular producer at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival and responsible for several of its most notable productions including Twelve Angry Men in 2003, The Odd Couple in 2005 and Morecambe in 2009 – which transferred to London's West End and won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, and The Shark Is Broken in 2019 – which transferred to London's West End and won a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best New Comedy. It opened on Broadway on August 10, 2023 for a 16 week run.
The Rose Theatre is an arts venue and Category B listed building on Rose Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, owned by ballet dancer and Olivier Award winning director Peter Schaufuss and is as a year round venue for theatre, comedy, music, dance and cabaret. It is also the home of the Rose Theatre Cafe. The venue is playing a major role during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Wildcat Stage Productions was an influential left-wing theatre and music production company based in Glasgow. Founded in 1978 as a spin-off from the 7:84 Company, it formed a key part of the Scottish touring theatre network for the next 20 years, creating more than 80 shows and giving many thousands of performances across Scotland, the UK and internationally. The company was named after the term for unofficial industrial action, excluding the word “theatre” from its name to avoid middle-class or bourgeois associations.
The Choir of Man is a British musical created by Nic Doodson and Andrew Kay. Set in a traditional British or Irish pub, the show features a working on-stage bar from which pints of beer are poured for the audience during the performance. Throughout the show, the cast of nine multi-instrumentalist singers perform arrangements of well known pop and rock songs arranged and orchestrated by the show's musical supervisor Jack Blume, while dialogue takes the form of spoken word monologues written by performance poet Ben Norris. The movement direction and choreography is by tap dancer Freddie Huddleston.