The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery. Its current seating capacity is 786.

History

Early years

Built by Sefton Henry Parry as the Royal Avenue Theatre, it opened on 11 March 1882 with 1200 seats. The first production at the theatre was Jacques Offenbach's Madame Favart. In its early seasons, the theatre hosted comic operas, burlesques and farces for several years. For much of this time, the low comedian Arthur Roberts, a popular star of the music halls, starred at the theatre. By the 1890s, the theatre was presenting drama, and in 1894 Annie Horniman, the tea heiress, anonymously sponsored the actress Florence Farr in a season of plays at the theatre. Farr's first production was unsuccessful, and so she prevailed upon her friend, George Bernard Shaw, to hurry and make his West End début at the theatre with Arms and the Man in 1894. It was successful enough to allow him to discontinue music criticism to focus full-time on play writing. The legendary actress Gladys Cooper managed the theatre for some years.

The Playhouse Theatre was a Broadway theatre located at 137 West 48th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Charles A. Rich was the architect. It was built in 1911 for producer William A. Brady who also owned the nearby 48th Street Theatre. After Brady died in 1944, it was sold to the Shubert Organization. It housed an ABC radio station from 1949 to 1952. Sauce for the Goose was the opening production on April 15, 1911, closing after 2 performances that day. It was razed to accommodate the Rockefeller Center expansion in 1969.

Another theatre, located at 359 W. 48th St., was called Playhouse Theatre from 1970–83.

Notable productions

Pink Floyd bootleg recordings are the collections of audio and video recordings of musical performances by the British rock band Pink Floyd, which were never officially released by the band. The recordings consist of both live performances and outtakes from studio sessions unavailable in official releases. In some cases, certain bootleg recordings may be highly prized among collectors, as at least 40 songs composed by Pink Floyd have never been officially released.

During the 1970s, bands such as Pink Floyd created a lucrative market for the mass production of unofficial recordings with large followings of fans willing to purchase them. In addition, the huge crowds that turned up to these concerts made the effective policing of the audience for the presence of recording equipment virtually impossible. Vast numbers of recordings were issued for profit by bootleg labels.

Some Pink Floyd bootlegs exist in several variations with differing sound quality and length because sometimes listeners have recorded different versions of the same performance at the same time. Pink Floyd was a group that protected its sonic performance, making recording with amateur recording devices difficult. In their career, Pink Floyd played over 1,300 concerts, of which more than 350 were released as bootlegged recordings (sometimes in various versions). Few concerts have ever been broadcast (or repeated once they were broadcast on television), especially during 'the golden age' of the group from 1966 to 1981.

Playhouse Theatre or Playhouse Theater may refer to:

United Kingdom

United States

Other places

See also

Coordinates: 47°39′23.83″N 122°18′48.93″W / 47.6566194°N 122.3135917°W / 47.6566194; -122.3135917

The Playhouse Theatre (later University of Washington Playhouse Theatre, now officially Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse) is a theater located at 4045 University Way NE (41st St) on The Ave in the University District, Seattle, Washington. It was converted from a tile warehouse in 1930 by Burton and Florence James, who set up the Seattle Repertory Playhouse with multi-ethnic performers and audiences.

They got funding during the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) of the New Deal to set up the Negro Repertory Company, one of four FTP units in Seattle, which was based at their theatre. The facility was sold to the University of Washington in 1950, which used it for its theatre department. In 1967 it was converted from a proscenium to a thrust stage. From 2007-2009, the building was reconstructed to add a story and make numerous improvements.

History

The Jameses

New Yorkers Burton James (1888–1951) and Florence James (1892–1988) came to Seattle in 1923 to start the theater department of what was then the Cornish School and is now the Cornish College of the Arts. In 1928, the Jameses quit Cornish after the school's board of directors objected to a production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author because of its brothel scene.