The Assembly Rooms Theatre

About

The Assembly Rooms Theatre, formally named the Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theatre after Sir Thomas Allen, is a historic 175-seat proscenium arch theatre located in the centre of Durham, England, United Kingdom. It is home to 33 Durham Student Theatre companies as well as a local resident company. The theatre is owned by Durham University and managed by the Student Enrichment Directorate, a department of the university.

History: Built in the eighteenth century, with the oldest surviving reference being a newspaper advert from 1741, the Assembly Rooms Theatre originally functioned as a ballroom, before being chosen to be redeveloped as a theatre after Durham's Theatre Royal burnt down in a fire in 1869. Its first dramatic performance, Il Trovatore, was presented in 1891. It was also used as a cinema, with the first projection being made in December 1896 only a month after the first film shown in Durham (at the Court Lane Theatre). It was also the venue for what was probably the first film drama shown in Durham, The Great Train Robbery, in 1903, and by 1912 films had virtually replaced live drama at the theatre. After their first production of H.M.S. Pinafore in 1909, the theatre...