Hampstead Theatre


Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. Roxana Silbert has been the artistic director since 2019.

History

The original theatre was created in 1959 in Moreland Hall, a parish church school hall in Holly Bush Vale, Hampstead Village. James Roose-Evans was the first Artistic Director, and the 1959–1960 season included The Dumb Waiter and The Room by Harold Pinter, Eugène Ionesco's Jacques and The Sport of My Mad Mother by Ann Jellicoe. In 1962 the company moved to a portable cabin in Swiss Cottage where it remained for nearly 40 years, before, in 2003, the new purpose-built Hampstead Theatre opened in Swiss Cottage. The main auditorium seats 375 people. The studio theatre, Hampstead Downstairs, seats up to 100 people and was turned into a laboratory for new writing in 2010.

Artistic directors

Playwrights who have had their early work produced at the theatre include: