Lyric Theatre

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Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, West London, in King Street, opened as the Lyric Hall in 1888. It was reconstructed and reopened as the Lyric Opera House in 1890, rebuilt in 1895, its seating capacity being increased from 550 to 800, and further improved in 1899. The home of a resident stock company, it drew a large local audience to its melodramas and annual pantomime, but its fortunes declined and it housed mainly touring companies until in 1918 it was taken over by Nigel Playfair. He redecorated it, renamed it the Lyric Theatre, and made it prosperous and fashionable, drawing large audiences from the West End. The opening production was A. A. Milne's Make-Believe; in 1919 Drinkwater's chronicle play Abraham Lincoln, brought from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre for two weeks, began a run of 466 performances. A notable revival of Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with décor by Lovat Fraser, opened in 1920 and ran for 1,463 performances. Edith Evans was a fine Millamant in Congreve's The Way of the World (1924) and returned as Mrs Sullen in Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem (1927). In between Ellen Terry made her last appearance on the stage, in De la Mare's Crossings, and there was a notable revival of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard with Gielgud as Trofimov (both 1925). A number of new light operas were staged, including A. P. Herbert's Riverside Nights, and in 1930 Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest was seen in a black-and-white décor. Playfair left in 1933, after which the theatre was used only intermittently, but in 1946 it achieved success with a production by Peter Brook of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov starring Alec Guinness. A number of new plays and revivals were then staged, several of which were transferred to the West End, among them Cocteau's The Eagle has Two Heads (also 1946), Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1947), Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and Sartre's Crime passionel (both 1948). Gielgud ran a successful repertory season, 1952–3, directing Paul Scofield in Richard II and appearing himself. Later productions were Anouilh's The Lark (1955) with Dorothy Tutin as Joan of Arc; the revue Share My Lettuce (1957), in which Maggie Smith made her London début; Pinter's first full-length play The Birthday Party (1958); and in 1959 Büchner's Danton's Death and Ibsen's Brand.

A period of stagnation then set in and the theatre finally closed in 1966. It was demolished in 1972, but plaster castings of the original Victorian interior were taken. A new theatre 20 yards away, seating 540, with the original interior, opened in 1979 with Shaw's You Never Can Tell. Its many West End transfers included Michael Frayn's Make and Break (1980) and Noises Off (1982) and García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba (1986). The small studio theatre seating 130 houses small touring companies and stages rarely performed work.

Lyric Theatre, London, in Shaftesbury Avenue, a four-tier house holding 1,306 (later reduced to 948). The theatre opened in 1888, and was devoted mainly to musicals, except when in 1893 Duse made her London début in the younger Dumas's La Dame aux camélias. It had its first outstanding success in 1896, when Wilson Barrett played Marcus Superbus in his own play The Sign of the Cross. Seasons of French plays were given in 1897 by Réjane and in 1898 by Sarah Bernhardt, and in 1902 Forbes-Robertson appeared in Hamlet and Othello. Successful musicals were Florodora (1899), The Duchess of Dantzig (1903), The Chocolate Soldier (1910), and Lilac Time (1922). In 1919 Romeo and Juliet was staged with Ellen Terry as Juliet's nurse. A succession of good modern plays included Priestley's Dangerous Corner (1932), Robert Sherwood's Reunion in Vienna (1934), Housman's Victoria Regina (1936), Giraudoux's Amphitryon 38 with the Lunts, and Charles Morgan's The Flashing Stream (both 1938). During the Second World War the Lunts were seen again in Love in Idleness (1944) by Terence Rattigan, whose The Winslow Boy (1946) provided the theatre's first post-war success. Equally successful was Roussin's The Little Hut (1950) with Robert Morley, which ran until T. S. Eliot's The Confidential Clerk took over in 1953. Two musicals, Grab Me a Gondola (1956) and Irma la Douce (1958), did well, as did Robert and Elizabeth (1964), a musical version of Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves (1970) with Robert Morley, Alan Bennett's farce Habeas Corpus (1973) with Alec Guinness, and the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert (1974) all prospered. An attempt in 1975 to found a repertory company was abandoned after only two productions, Chekhov's The Seagull and Ben Travers's The Bed before Yesterday, though the latter had a long run on its own. Later successes were William Douglas Home's The Kingfisher, De Filippo's Filumena (both 1977), Hugh Whitemore's Pack of Lies (1983), and Lanford Wilson's Burn This (1990).

Lyric Theatre, New York, on West 42nd Street. This opened in 1903 with Old Heidelberg, starring Richard Mansfield, who for some years returned regularly with his company, the theatre being used also for opera and musical plays. One of its earliest successes was The Taming of the Shrew, with Ada Rehan and Otis Skinner, and in its second season Réjane and Novelli appeared with their companies. Plays by Sudermann and Hauptmann were seen and the musical comedy The Chocolate Soldier (1909) had a long run. In 1911 came the first production in the United States of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea. Florenz Ziegfeld filled the theatre for many years with a series of musical comedies, and the last production in 1933, before the building became a cinema; was a Negro drama with music, Hall Jonson's Run, Little Chillun.

New York's Criterion Theatre was known as the Lyric for its first four years.

Lyric Theatre. See Ford Center for the Performing Arts.