Royal Court Theatre, the

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 700+ words | Copyright

Royal Court Theatre, the, built in 1888, has a historic association with new writing. Under the management of J. E. Vedrenne and H. Granville-Barker from 1904 to 1907, it staged premieres by Shaw, Galsworthy, Yeats, and Masefield. But it was with the foundation of the English Stage Company in 1956, under the direction of George Devine (1910–66), that it became a national centre of new writing. The production of Look Back in Anger by Osborne (8 May 1956) liberated other writers through its scalding rhetoric and social candour. The Court has subsequently championed many living dramatists including Wesker, Arden, Bond, Storey, Friel, Fugard, Caryl Churchill, Mustapha Matura, and Timberlake Wertenbaker as well as reviving neglected masters such as D. H. Lawrence. In the mid-1990s, under the direction of Stephen Daldry, it acquired fresh impetus through its encouragement of a new generation of socially angry, anti-materialist young writers, including Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill, and its promotion of eloquent new Irish dramatists, notably Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Royal Court Theatre, the." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Royal Court Theatre, the." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-RoyalCourtTheatrethe.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Royal Court Theatre, the." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-RoyalCourtTheatrethe.html

Learn more about citation styles