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London's stages and concert rooms: the West End houses and the playhouses that make their own shows, the grand halls, the churches with a musical life, the jazz basements, the comedy clubs, the clubs proper, the rooms above pubs where things start, and the booth on Leicester Square that sells off what the West End has not. What is on is listed under each venue, and in What's On.
What is on at them this week is in What's On: Performance
A theatre company that casts everyone who turns up, in a purpose-built house named after the shed it started in.
PlayhousesFor children
Mary Ward, a teacher, and Jo Collins, a composer, began running theatre sessions in 1974 in a disused chicken shed at Wrotham Park, lent to them by the landowner. The principle then was the principle now: nobody auditions and nobody is turned away, and a company of several hundred, disabled and non-disabled together, makes the show. The work is built around what the cast can do rather than cast to fit a script, which is why the productions are original and why the shows look like nothing else.
It outgrew the shed and raised the money for a building of its own, which opened on Chase Side in 1994 and kept the name. There are four spaces in it: the Rayne Theatre, seating about 292, a studio, an outdoor amphitheatre and a bar that programmes live music.
Alongside the main company there are four children's theatre groups and two youth theatres for five- to twenty-one-year-olds, and a set of degree and diploma courses taught on site. The Christmas show is an original piece with a very large cast and runs from November into January.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.