THE OLD STOKE REP

Travelling Players

To inform ourselves of the early days of the Stoke Repertory Theatre it is useful to refer to the first attempt (written by one of the founder members Laurence Steele) to chart the history of the society. In 1947 ‘The Playgoers’ Club’ booklet was printed. This told the story of the Rep up until that point.

It begins, “The story of drama in North Staffordshire would be incomplete without recognising the part played by the Stoke-on-Trent Repertory Theatre whose history dates from 1920, when the Stoke-on-Trent Dramatic Society was launched with the performance of “Caste” in Longton Theatre, followed in 1921 by further performances in the Assembly Hall, Stoke, alternating with “The Chinese Puzzle”.

There is a sense at this point that the young people involved in this venture were driven by the desire to stage plays wherever they could.

The Empire Theatre

The ‘Longton Theatre’ was a venue that would reappear much later in the company’s timeline. Originally built as the Queen’s Theatre in 1887 (designed by architect John Taylor) it was destroyed by fire on 28th September 1894. A new Queen’s Theatre was built on the site, designed by noted theatre architect Frank Matcham, which opened in 1896. It served as a variety theatre and from at least 1911 films were shown as part of the bill. In 1916 it was renamed Empire Theatre. The Stoke-on-Trent Dramatic Society’s production of "Caste" would have been one of the final live performances given there as in late 1921 work began on converting it into a cinema which opened on 23rd January 1922.

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The Hippodrome

In 1923 the Stoke-on-Trent Dramatic Society performed two plays ("Dear Brutus" and "Are You A Mason?") at the Hippodrome Theatre on Wolfe Street (now called Kingsway) in Stoke. This venue had previously been called the Gordon Theatre which was designed by Owen and Ward and first opened on 12th March 1900. It was named after General Gordon of Khartoum whose bust featured on the front of the theatre. The Gordon Hotel, situated opposite the theatre, also carried his name. The Gordon Theatre was a rebuild of the former Crown Theatre that stood on the site and opened in February 1897. The Crown Theatre had been constructed entirely out of wood and had been designed by Charles Lynham Beckett of Stoke-on-Trent. It consisted of stalls and pit on the ground floor, with boxes, circle, back circle, and gallery on the first floor. Seating capacity for the Crown Theatre had been around 1100. The theatre's name was changed to the Hippodrome when it started showing variety under the management of T. Allan Edwards. In 1919 the theatre was taken over by Biocolour who converted it for full time cinema use, reopening as such on the 21st of April that year. In December 1951 the theatre was closed for major alterations to its auditorium when all the original Victorian decoration was removed. It reopened as the Gaumont Cinema on the 28th July 1952. Less than ten years later the theatre was closed by its then owners, the Rank Organisation, on the 14th of January 1961. The theatre was subsequently demolished the following year in May 1962, and a row of shops was built on its site.

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Repertory Players

Later in 1923 the company staged a further two productions at the Assembly Hall in Stoke. "The Man From Toronto" and "The Man Who Stayed At Home" were the first to be performed under the title of Repertory Players. In the following year the company presented a double bill of "Milestones" and "Jack Straw" at the Theatre Royal in Hanley. The decision to use this venue resulted in the Players facing ‘crippling debt’. They made frantic efforts to acquire a space they could both rehearse and perform in. Ideally one that could also be used as a ‘club-room”.

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The Studio

In 1929 this materialised in The Studio – a room reached by five flights of stairs over Webberleys Bookshop in Percy Street, Hanley. There was strictly limited space for dressing rooms and property storage but it did have seating capacity for an audience of 100 people. In spite of its limitations many happy times were spent there, and successful productions included plays by J. M. Barrie and John Galsworthy, culminating in "The Knight of the Burning Pestle". According to Steele this was “an ambitious venture which succeeded in the face of much misgiving on the part of the philistines”

The Players found themselves in further difficulties when the society was refused a licence to perform any further plays in The Studio. This prompted a serious search to find and establish a permanent home.

in 1933 they took out a lease on the church hall of the Parish St Jude In Beresford Street, Shelton. Although the initial agreement was for three years, the property was bought outright in the early 1970s and the company stayed in Beresford Street until the summer of 1997.

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