1 Clarence St, Richmond TW9 2SA | near Richmond station
Orange Tree Theatre was founded in 1971 in a small room above the pub of the same name by Sam Walters (who retired in 2014 as the UK’s longest-serving theatre director) and his actress wife Auriol Smith, and moved to its current site (opposite the pub) in 1991; throughout its life, this has been the place to go in Richmond and the surrounding areas for exciting and innovative independent theatre. Its stated mission is “to enable audiences to experience the next generation of theatre talent, experiment with ground-breaking new drama and explore the plays from the past that inspire the theatre-makers of the present.”
Since 2014 the theatre has won ten ‘Offies’ (Off West End Awards) and five UK Theatre Awards, and well as the regional award for Most Welcoming Theatre in 2017. Theatre makers produce their plays with the theatre’s intimate staging in mind; its 180 seats are ‘in the round’ (i.e. all around the stage which sits in the middle) and split across two levels, which gives an intimacy and immediacy to the productions and performances.
This place has earned its (self-appointed) title as “a powerhouse of independent theatre”; as well as producing plays in-house that have gone on to run at The National Theatre, from 1986 to 2014 it ran a trainee director scheme, each year appointing two young assistant directors who have gone on to do great things in theatre, including Timothy Sheader, Dominic Hill and Rachel Kavanaugh. What’s more, the theatre has been running an MA in Theatre Directing with St Mary's University, Twickenham since 2016, with students sometimes bringing stand-out performances to the public.
You can check out Orange Tree Theatre’s current programme here
Tickets range from £15 - £56 (with concessions for Under 30s and theare Union Members)
Details
- Address:
- 1 Clarence St
- TW9 2SA
- Contact:
- https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/