Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
The Royal Exchange Theatre is a producing theatre in Manchester, England.
The theatre is based in the Manchester Royal Exchange, a large Victorian building used until 1968 for cotton trading.
Programme
The Royal Exchange gives an average of 350 performances a year of nine professional theatre productions. These productions are occasionally transfered to London, or toured in a 400 seat mobile theatre.
The company performs a varied programme including classic theatre and revivals, contemporary drama, and original new writing.
In addition to its own productions the Royal Exchange also presents visiting theatre companies in The Studio; folk, jazz and rock concerts; and discussions, readings and literary events.
Performance spaces
The Royal Exchange Theatre has two performance spaces:
The Theatre
This is a seven sided steel and glass module that squats within the Great Hall of the Manchester Royal Exchange. It a pure theatre in the round in which the stage area is surrounded on all sides and above by seating.
The theatre can seat up to 700 people on three levels. There are 400 seats at ground level in a raked configuration, above which lie two galleries, each with 150 seats set in two rows.
As the floor of the Exchange would not be able to take the great weight of the theatre and its audience, the module is suspended from four massive columns that also carry the hall's central dome. Only the stage area and ground level seating rest on the floor of the hall itself.
The theatre's unique design was conceived by Richard Negri of Wimbledon School of Art, and was intended to create an unusually vivid and immediate relationship between actors and audiences.
The Studio
This is a 100 seat studio theatre of flexible configuration. This space acts as host to a programme of visiting touring theatre companies and performances for young people.
History
The IRA bomb and its aftermath
On 15 June 1996 the IRA detonated a massive bomb in Manchester city centre, 50 metres from the exchange. Damage to the building was extensive, making performances impossible.
Repairs took over two years to complete and cost £32 million, a sum provided by the National Lottery. Whilst its home was being rebuilt the company performed in its mobile theatre, which was set up in an indoor market building in nearby Castlefield.
As well as repairing the theatre the rebuilding programme also added a second performance space, The Studio, as well as a bookshop, craft shop, restaurant, bars, and rooms for corporate hospitality. The theatre's workshops, costume department and rehearsal rooms were moved to a second site on Swan Street.
The refurbished theatre was re-opened on 30 November 1998 by Prince Edward. The opening production was Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes, the play which was being presented when the bomb went off.
In 1999 the Royal Exchange was awarded the title of Theatre of the Year in the
