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Stephen Joseph Theatre

1951 establishments in EnglandCinemas in YorkshireTheatres completed in 1951Theatres in Scarborough, North YorkshireUse British English from January 2020
The Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough
The Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough

The Stephen Joseph Theatre is a theatre in the round in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England that was founded by Stephen Joseph and was the first theatre in the round in Britain. In 1955, Joseph established a tiny theatre in the round on the first floor of the Public Library.The theatre flourished and in 1976 moved to a supposedly temporary home on the ground floor of the former Scarborough Boys' High School. However, a permanent home proved difficult to find and it was not until late 1988 and the closure of the local Odeon cinema by Rank Leisure that the theatre's long-standing Artistic Director, Alan Ayckbourn, found a suitable venue. Ayckbourn launched a £4 million appeal to transform the old cinema with a view to opening it up in 1995.The new theatre, known simply as the Stephen Joseph Theatre, opened in 1996 and comprises two auditoria: The Round, a 404-seat theatre in the round, and The McCarthy, a 165-seat end-on stage/cinema. The building also contains a restaurant, shop, and full front-of-house and backstage facilities. The Round boasts two important technical innovations: the stage lift, facilitating speedy set changes, and the trampoline, a Canadian invention which allows technicians particularly easy access to the lighting grid. It is also the place where the image used for the cover of Richard Hawley's album Coles Corner was taken.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Stephen Joseph Theatre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Stephen Joseph Theatre
Westborough,

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N 54.280556 ° E -0.405833 °
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Stephen Joseph Theatre

Westborough
YO11 1JW , The Old Town
England, United Kingdom
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sjt.uk.com

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The Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough
The Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough
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Borough of Scarborough
Borough of Scarborough

The Borough of Scarborough () was a non-metropolitan district with borough status in North Yorkshire, England. In addition to the town of Scarborough, it covered a large stretch of the coast of Yorkshire, including Whitby and Filey. It bordered Redcar and Cleveland to the north, the Ryedale and Hambleton districts to the west and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the south. The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was a merger of the urban district of Filey and part of the Bridlington Rural District, from the historic East Riding of Yorkshire, along with the municipal borough of Scarborough, Scalby and Whitby urban districts, and Scarborough Rural District and Whitby Rural District, from the historic North Riding. In 2007, the borough was threatened with extinction. In March of that year, North Yorkshire County Council was shortlisted by the Department for Communities and Local Government to become a unitary authority. If the bid had been successful then the Borough of Scarborough would — along with all other districts and boroughs in the present county of North Yorkshire — have been abolished then. The bid, however, was unsuccessful and the districts remained as they were previously constituted. However, in July 2021 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced that in April 2023, the non-metropolitan county would be reorganised into a unitary authority. Scarborough Borough Council was abolished and its functions were transferred to a new single authority for the non-metropolitan county of North Yorkshire.