After a year and £6 million, it’s almost time for the curtain to go up on the new-look York Theatre Royal.
The theatre closed for redevelopment in March 2015. It reopens again on Friday, April 22, after an overhaul which has touched almost every part of the 272-year-old building.
Its first production will be Brideshead Revisited, an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s wartime novel famously turned into a TV series.
YorkMix went on a tour of the new-look York Theatre Royal, and here’s what you can expect…
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Where the money was spent
So what do you get for six million?
- A seating area inside the glazed colonnade
- A new foyer space with colour-changing counters, created from broom cupboards under the dress circle
- A new Terrazzo floor
- More and better loos
- A lift giving disabled visitors access to the dress circle
- Noise insulation allowing the cafés to operate during performance times
- New seating in the auditorium
- A new rake in the stalls and gallery to allow better sightlines
- Better air conditioning to improve audience comfort and reduce energy use
- The creation of a flat, modular stage which offers increased innovation
- Individual rooflights to allow in more daylight
- A major roof overhaul.
Where the money came from:
- £770K from City of York Council – but its annual subsidy will be scrapped, saving the council £124,000 next year
- £2.9 million from Arts Council England
- more than £2 million from York Conservation Trust, which bought York Theatre Royal from the council for £1
- £500K from public donations
- other contributions from the Garfield Weston Foundation, Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, The Feoffees
of St Michael’s, Spurriergate and Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The architects for the redevelopment were De Matos Ryan.
