York Theatre Royal reopens following £6million redevelopment

York Theatre Royal is reopening its doors after a £6 million redevelopment. The 270-year-old theatre is the oldest producing theatre outside London. The latest redevelopment is to increase access and make the building more suitable for a 21st century audience.

The project was funded by Arts Council England, City of York Council and York Conservation Trust, with the remainder raised through a public fundraising campaign.

The main stage has been reconstructed in a modular form, allowing it to be adapted or removed entirely, offering a more flexibility in the historic theatre. The new layout also enables traps and level changes to be provided with ease adding to the versatility of productions and making the theatre more suitable for touring productions and dance companies. Sightlines have been improved with a new rake to the Stalls enhancing the intimacy of the auditorium and the Dress Circle and Gallery have received new seating and raking to maximise capacity and improve comfort and sightlines. Every stage of the redevelopment has been carefully designed to harmonise with the Grade II listed building.

The project has also improved access through the building, added an open plan foyer and doubled the cafe area.

York Theatre Royal lies on the site of St Leonard’s Hospital, one of the largest and most important hospitals of mediaeval England. A team of archaeologists from York Archaeological Trust spent several weeks carrying out excavations under the stage before ground works took place in the auditorium. The team uncovered limestone foundations of the north wall of one of the 12th century hospital buildings and a number of the plinths and pillar bases for the rib-vaulted ground floor.

The dig also found the remains of a post-mediaeval cobbled street, made up of stones from St. Leonard’s Hospital, evidence of supporting columns from the hospital and a mediaeval well. An arched entranceway, situated in the back wall of the theatre had at various points thought to be a section of the York Minster yard walls and part of the entrance to the Royal Mint in York. Excavations during the renovation proved it to be an unusual and rare 18th century folly which would have once formed part of a gateway to the gardens adjacent to the theatre that were swallowed up during 19th century expansion works.

The theatre's Spring 2016 season reopens with two world premiere York Theatre Royal co-productions; a new reimagining of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel Brideshead Revisited in conjunction with English Touring Theatre, and an adaptation of E.M. Forster’s classic short story The Machine Stops which celebrates the theatre’s longstanding partnership with Pilot Theatre.