Albery Theatre

Albery Theatre, London, in St Martin's Lane, seating 900, built for Charles Wyndham, who opened it in 1903 as the New Theatre with a revival of Parker and Carson's Rosemary, after which it settled down to a consistently successful career. From 1905 to 1913 Fred Terry and Julia Neilson occupied it for a six-month annual season, and many of their most successful plays were seen there, including Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905). The theatre also housed an annual revival of Barrie's Peter Pan for several years. Among outstanding productions have been a dramatization of Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women (1919), in which Katharine Cornell made her only London appearance; A. A. Milne's Mr Pim Passes By (1920); and Shaw's Saint Joan with Sybil Thorndike (1924). A year later came the long run of Margaret Kennedy's The Constant Nymph, which saw the first appearance of John Gielgud at a theatre where he later appeared in Gordon Daviot's Richard of Bordeaux (1933), Hamlet (1934), Romeo and Juliet and Obey's Noah (both 1935). Among later productions were The Taming of the Shrew (1937), O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1938) and Priestley's Johnson over Jordan (1939) with Ralph Richardson. After the bombing of the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells, the New became the London headquarters of both companies in 1941. Sadler's Wells withdrew in 1944 and the Old Vic in 1950, in which year T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party began a successful run. The theatre housed a series of excellent plays, including Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (1956) and Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1957). In 1960 Lionel Bart's Oliver!, a musical based on Dicken's Oliver Twist, began a run of several years. (Another long run began in 1977.) In 1973 the theatre changed its name to honour its former manager, Bronson Albery. Shaffer's Equus was transferred there from the National Theatre in 1976. The musical Pal Joey (1980) transferred from the Fringe and Mark Medoff's Children of a Lesser God (1981) from the Mermaid. The musical Blood Brothers began a long run in 1988.