Apollo Theatre

The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, in central London.English Heritage listing
accessed 28 April 2007 Designed by the architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfeld, it became the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street when it opened its doors on 21 February 1901, with the American musical comedy ''The Belle of Bohemia''.

History

Construction

Henry Lowenfeld had bought land on the newly created Shaftesbury Avenue at the turn of the 20th century—next door to the Lyric Theatre, which opened in 1888—and as a consequence the Apollo is one of the few theatres in London to be freehold.

The only complete theatre design of architect Lewin Sharp, the Apollo was specifically designed for musical theatre and named after the Greek god of the arts and leader of the muses. It was constructed by builder Walter Wallis of plain London brick in keeping with the neighbouring streets; the front piece is in the Renaissance style with a sculpted stone fascia by T. Simpson. The structure encloses a four-level auditorium, with three cantilevered balconies and a first-floor central loggia, decorated in the Louis XIV Style by Hubert van Hooydonk. In keeping with then European style, each level has its own foyer and promenade.

Owing to the death of Queen Victoria the previous month, it became the first London theatre to be completed in the Edwardian period. The capacity on the opening night, 21 February 1901, was 893, with a proscenium of wide and deep.

The capacity today is 757 seats, with the balcony on the 3rd tier considered the steepest in London.

Operations

Owing to a relatively unsuccessful opening, impresario Tom B. Davis took a lease on the building, and hence management of operations, from 1902. The theatre was renovated by Ernest Schaufelberg in 1932, with a private foyer and anteroom installed to the Royal Box. Prince Littler took control of the theatre in 1944.

Stoll Moss Group purchased the theatre in 1975, selling it to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group and Bridgepoint Capital in 2000. Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer purchased the theatre and several others in 2005, creating Nimax Theatres, which still owns the theatre.

2013 ceiling collapse

On 19 December 2013, at about 20:15 GMT, of the auditorium's ornate plasterwork ceiling collapsed around 40 minutes into a performance of ''The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time''. It brought down a lighting rig and a section of balcony, thereby trapping two people and injuring around 88, including seven seriously. There were 720 people in the audience at the time. The incident was preceded by heavy rain.

The emergency services responded with 25 ambulance crews, an air ambulance rapid response team, 8 fire engines with more than 50 firefighters, and the Metropolitan Police. Casualties were taken to the foyers of the adjacent Gielgud and Queen's theatres, where the emergency services could triage. The London Ambulance Service later stated that they had treated 76 injured people, with 58 taken to four London hospitals, some on commandeered buses. Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust said 34 adults and 5 children were subsequently treated in accident and emergency at St Thomas' Hospital.

The venue reopened on 26 March 2014, with an adaptation of ''Let the Right One In'' produced by the National Theatre of Scotland. The owners were able to reopen the theatre by sealing the fourth level and balcony with a temporary floor, which allowed investigators to continue their work in determining the cause of the collapse. That month Westminster City Council issued a notice to other historic theatres saying that the ceiling collapse appeared to have been caused by the gradual deterioration of Hessian wadding mixed into plaster of Paris to form the ties lashing timbers together, which had probably been in place since the theatre was built.

Production history

The opening caused a public uproar, with a selected audience for the first performance, on Thursday 21 February 1901, and the first public performance scheduled for 22 February. ''The Times'' refused to review the private opening, instead waiting until the first public production on the following day. The opening production was the American musical comedy ''The Belle of Bohemia'', which survived for 72 performances—17 more than it had accomplished when produced on Broadway. The production was followed by John Martin-Harvey's season, including ''A Cigarette Maker's Romance'' and ''The Only Way'', an adaptation of Charles Dickens' '' A Tale of Two Cities''.

George Edwardes produced a series of successful Edwardian musical comedies, including ''Kitty Grey'' (1901), ''Three Little Maids'' and ''The Girl from Kays'' (1902). An English version of André Messager's light opera '' Véronique'' became a hit in 1904, starring with Ruth Vincent

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