Soho Place, the West End’s first new-build theatre in five decades, is set to open this weekend.
The 600-seat Soho St venue will welcome its first guests on Saturday for a performance of Neil Baldwin and Malcolm Clarke’s ‘Marvellous’ some 12 years after plans for its development were conceived.
Soho Place is owned by West End producer and theatre owner Nica Burns and operated by Nimax Theatres.
The theatre, part of Derwent London’s £300m regeneration project in Soho, is adjacent to the site of the old Astoria theatre which was demolished to build Crossrail, and sits directly above Crossrail’s new Elizabeth line and the existing Northern and Central lines at Tottenham Court Road station.
Burns said: “I wanted to create a theatre which could add a different dimension to our vibrant West End landscape.
“I asked our greatest theatre creatives two questions: If we could build a new theatre in the heart of the West End, what would you like it to be? What additional facilities would be on your wish list? They dreamt of a flexible auditorium, perfect acoustics and audience / stage intimacy. An ability to create on-site with the dream of a rehearsal room, a Green Room and a bar all in the same building. So that’s what we built – with a few extras including an outside terrace.
“The incredible team of engineers pulled off the greatest of structural feats, building over a major underground transport hub – a challenging place to build a theatre – achieving perfect acoustics and no vibrations.”
Soho Place benefits from a curved auditorium unifying both audience and actors, with no seats more than six rows from the stage. The flexible auditorium can be transformed into a number of different configurations.
The venue was developed by Derwent London along with architect Simon Allford, founder of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, engineering giant Arup, and construction group Laing O’Rourke.