Royal Court Theatre

Theatre in Sloane Square, London. It was originally built in 1888, designed by Walter Emden (1847–1913). As the home of the English Stage Company from 1956, it is associated with productions of new work. The main theatre holds 400, and the ‘Theatre Upstairs’, opened in 1969, holds 60.

The Royal Court had its first success with Arthur Pinero's Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ in 1898. It thrived under the managing partnership of John Vedrenne (1867–1930) and Harley Granville-Barker 1904–07, with productions of plays by Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy, and others, and under George Devine 1956–64. His production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger was a milestone in modern British drama.

The predecessor of the present Royal Court Theatre was a disused chapel on the south side of the square, which opened as a theatre in 1870 and staged several successful plays before it was demolished in 1887. The present building, on the east side, was a cinema 1932–40, closed 1940–52 after bomb damage, and closed again 1960–65. After a renovation designed by British architect Steve Tompkins, the theatre reopened in 2000. It was modernized and expanded, although made to look deliberately raw, unfinished, and exposed.