Address | The Cut London, SE1 United Kingdom |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°30′12″N0°06′27″W / 51.50323°N 0.10748°W |
Public transit | Waterloo; Southwark Waterloo; Waterloo East |
Owner | The Young Vic Company |
Type | Non-commercial resident company |
Capacity | 420 Main house 150 Maria (studio) 70 Clare (studio) |
Production | Repertory seasons |
Construction | |
Opened | 1970 |
Rebuilt | 2006: Haworth Tompkins |
Architect | Haworth Tompkins |
Website | |
youngvic.org |
The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth.
The Young Vic was established by Frank Dunlop in 1970. Kwame Kwei-Armah has been Artistic Director since February 2018, [1] succeeding David Lan.
In the period after World War II, a Young Vic Company was formed in 1946 by director George Devine [2] as an offshoot of the Old Vic Theatre School for the purpose of performing classic plays for audiences aged nine to fifteen.
This was discontinued in 1948, when Devine and the entire faculty resigned from the Old Vic, but in 1969 Frank Dunlop became founder-director of The Young Vic theatre with Scapino, his free adaptation of Molière's The Cheats of Scapin , presented at the new venue as a National Theatre production. It opened on 10 September 1970 and starred Jim Dale in the title role, with designs by Carl Toms (decor) and Maria Björnson (costumes). [3]
Initially part of the National Theatre, the Young Vic Theatre became an independent body in 1974. [4]
In the words of Laurence Olivier, then-director of the National Theatre: "Here we think to develop plays for young audiences, an experimental workshop for authors, actors and producers." The aim was to create an accessible theatre which offered high quality at low cost in an informal environment. The aim was to appeal to young audiences, but this time not specifically to children.
Frank Dunlop completed creation of the theatre venue in 1970, a breeze-block building constructed out of a former butcher's shop and an adjacent bomb-site with a red wooden slat auditorium bench seating [ clarification needed ]. The structure was intended to last for five years, but has become permanent.
The auditorium, with a thrust stage, has an approximate capacity of 420, although the configuration and capacity can vary depending on the design of each production.
The Theatre undertook a significant rebuilding and renewal project in the 2000s, designed by architects Haworth Tompkins, boosting its visibility on The Cut. In addition to the Young Vic's main house, there are now two smaller theatre spaces. The Maria, named after theatre designer Maria Björnson, is the larger of the two with a capacity of 150. The Clare, named after a former artistic director of the Young Vic and Sheffield Crucible, Clare Venables, [5] seats 70. Like the main house, both smaller theatres have flexible seating configurations which can be arranged to suit the production design. In the two smaller auditoria, seating is usually unreserved, with the actors performing in close proximity to the audience. [6]
The Young Vic performs both new writing and classic plays, the latter often in innovative productions. Despite its small size, like the Almeida Theatre, the Young Vic has attracted well-known actors since its creation. These have included Ian Charleson, who made his memorable professional debut with the Young Vic 1972–74, and who played Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger and Hamlet in the first revival of Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1973, and Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Timothy Dalton, Robert Lindsay, Willard White, John Malkovich, Michael Sheen and Arthur Lowe.
The rock band The Who held free, weekly concerts at the Young Vic in early 1971, in order to rehearse what would become their album, Who's Next . One of these shows was released on the Deluxe edition of this album.
A memorial at the theatre's south-east corner commemorates the 54 people killed in 1941 while sheltering in the cellars of the former building during the Blitz. [7]
In 1982 the theatre hosted a Poetry Olympics, where comedian Pat Condell took part. [8] Virginia Woolf taught at Morley College [9] from 1905, a precursor of the Young Vic's education and community engagement programme. The latter now runs an office which accommodates and houses the 'homeless' Belarus Free Theatre, of Nikolai Khalezin, Natalia Koliada, with Sarah Kane's '4.48 Psychosis' performed underground, illegally in Minsk and Farringdon [ clarification needed ], in the cold cells of Clerkenwell House of Detention, a secret location in London. [10] [11] Echoing the words of Woolf and mirroring her suicide, Kane's play was sponsored by another feminist, Sue Emmas, who since the year 1993 has been Associate Director of the social engagement programme, [12] [13] [14] working closely with Kwame Kwei-Armah and leads the Directors Program [15] which provides initiatives for emerging directors, with emphasis on seeking out and nurturing artists from under-represented backgrounds.
In 2003, the Young Vic launched a campaign to raise £12.5 million for a major reconstruction of its building and closed in 2004 for work to start.
Designed by architects Haworth Tompkins – also known for their refurbishment of the Royal Court Theatre, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, and two temporary venues for the Almeida – and with Jane Wernick Associates as the structural engineers, and consulting engineers Max Fordham LLP designing the building services, the refurbishment was completed in October 2006.
The main auditorium has been left intact, but refurbished and technically enhanced. The butcher's shop has also been retained as the main entrance to the building and also the box office.
The remainder of the 1970s structure has been rebuilt to provide new foyers, dressing rooms, two studio theatres, and workshop spaces. An award of £5 million was received from the Arts Council of England.
The Young Vic re-opened on 11 October 2006, with a production of the community opera Tobias and the Angel ; with music by Jonathan Dove and a libretto by David Lan. [16]
On 16 May 2007, the refurbished Young Vic won the RIBA London Building of the Year Award. [17] Following this award, the Young Vic was also shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize on 27 July 2007. [18]
A rebranding exercise by Sense Worldwide in 2010 resulted in the abandonment of its 30-year-old "sit anywhere" policy and a new strapline, "It's a big world in here". [19]
The Young Vic was one of the launch theatres for Digital Theatre, a project that makes theatre productions available in video download form. The first performances that were filmed were Kafka's Monkey and The Container. [20]
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier was an English actor and director. He and his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud made up a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career he had considerable success in television roles.
The Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT) within the UK and as the National Theatre of Great Britain internationally, is a performing arts venue and associated theatre company located in London, England. The theatre was founded by the actor Laurence Olivier in 1963, and many well-known actors have performed with it since.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
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Kwame Kwei-Armah is a British actor, playwright, director and broadcaster. In 2005, Kwei-Armah became the second black Briton to have a play staged in the West End of London when his award-winning piece Elmina's Kitchen transferred to the Garrick Theatre. He was the first black Briton to head a major British national theater, when he took the directorship of the Young Vic in 2018. Kwei-Armah was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
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Elmina's Kitchen, first performed in May 2003, is the fifth play from the British actor, playwright and broadcaster, Kwame Kwei-Armah. Set in a West Indian restaurant in London, Elmina's Kitchen tells a tale of family, drugs and crime on Hackney's Murder Mile. The play is centred on the character of Deli, the owner of a West Indian restaurant and father to Ashley. Ashley is a misguided teen who cannot help but be seduced by the gangster culture that surrounds him. Deli tries to run a successful restaurant while attempting to keep his son on the straight and narrow particularly when his son gets closer to a well-known local gangster, Digger.
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Nicolas Kent is a British theatre director. His father arrived in Britain in 1936, a Jewish German refugee, and changed his name from Kahn to Kent.
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One Love: The Bob Marley Musical previously titled Marley is a musical based on the life and music of Bob Marley, written by Kwame Kwei-Armah.
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The Collaboration is a dramatic stage play written by New Zealand playwright Anthony McCarten. The play originated in the West End at The Young Vic in London. The original production starred Paul Bettany as Andy Warhol and Jeremy Pope as Jean-Michel Basquiat. The story, set in New York in 1984, centers around the collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat and their new exhibition. The production transferred on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in a co-production with the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Young Vic Theatre, starting on November 29, 2022, and ending in February 2023.