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Stephen Joseph Theatre
 The incredible Art Deco exterior at night All images are credit Tony Bartholomew or SJT unless otherwise stated.  Stephen Joseph Theatre by Peter McDermott, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons  The SJT venues over the years  The Round auditorium  A production in The Round  The McCarthy auditorium  The McCarthy stage/cinema  Couldn’t resist another great shot of the SJT at night! | Born in a library, raised in a school, and now thriving inside an Art Deco haven, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre (SJT) has been reinventing itself (and British theatre) for 70 years! On 14 July 1955, pioneering director Stephen Joseph opened the UK’s first professional theatre-in-the-round upstairs at Scarborough Library. It was intimate, eccentric and… it worked. The little Library Theatre quickly became a sanctuary for new writing and emerging talent, including an 18-year-old Alan Ayckbourn, who arrived in 1957 as an acting ASM and has never really left. By 1976, the company had outgrown the library and moved to a 'temporary' new home at Westwood (a former school), where it kept the in-the-round format, and kept developing Ayckbourn’s work as writer-director. In 1996, a long-held dream came true when the company took over Scarborough’s 1936 Odeon cinema, preserving the glorious foyer and 30s detailing while building a purpose-designed roundhouse at the former screen end. The new SJT opened with By Jeeves, an Ayckbourn & Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, after previews from 24 April and an official launch on 1 May 1996. A new theatre mecca was born! Today the building houses two auditoria, The Round, with 404 seats, and The McCarthy with 165 seats, an end-stage studio and sometime cinema. The Round even boasted a UK first when it opened, with a stage lift and a wire-mesh trampoline lighting grid for rapid changeovers. It can even be adapted to 3 sided should the need arise. The SJT produces five or six shows a year, often including a new Ayckbourn, a big 'popular excellence' comedy, and a much loved Christmas show. They run alongside many visiting events spanning drama, music, comedy, dance and more. This summer’s headline comedy is Noises Off (9th August to 6th September), never before staged in-the-round! This year also saw this legendary theatre mark its 70th birthday with a wonderful gala celebration As for local legends, well Scarborough remains Ayckbourn’s creative home, he served as Artistic Director from 1972 to 2009, returned to work after a 2006 stroke, and continues to premiere his new plays at the SJT. The current Artistic Director is Paul Robinson (appointed 2016), who has steered the theatre through recent seasons with a sure hand and plenty of Yorkshire gumption. |