Liverpool Playhouse

Built in 1866 as the Star Music Hall, in 1911 the Liverpool Playhouse housed one the first and later o9ne of the longest running repertory companies in the country when it ended in 1999. The Playhouse’s acting roster was among the finest in the country – including Robert Donat, Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, John Thaw, Anthony Hopkins and many, many more – and the rich variety of the repertory programme formed many generations of committed theatregoers. It was here that Noel Coward first worked with Gertrude Lawrence, as child actors, was the wartime home of the Old Vic company, and in the latter part of the twentieth century featured the tenure of ‘The Gang of Four’ – Alan Bleasdale, Chris Bond, Bill Morrison and Willy Russell – a brief but dazzlingly creative period which spawned, among many others, Russell’s international smash hit, Blood Brothers.

In 1999, Liverpool’s Everyman and Playhouse theatres were joined together in a new management created to take the city’s producing theatre forward into the 21st century. Since 2004, the theatres have been on a remarkable journey, described as “a theatrical renaissance on Merseyside” (The Observer) with over 20 world premières, the majority by Liverpool writers.