The Criterion Theatre is situated in

Earlsdon Earlsdon is a residential suburb and electoral ward of Coventry, England. It lies approximately one mile to the southwest of Coventry City Centre. It is the birthplace of aviation pioneer Frank Whittle. Amenities Most shops and restaurants ar ...

Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It puts on about seven shows a year. The company has won the Godiva Award for best theatre in the region several times. The current patrons are

Pete Waterman Peter Alan Waterman (born 15 January 1947) is an English record producer, songwriter, and television personality. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman production and songwriting team, he co-wrote and co-produced many UK hit singles. An av ...

, music producer and railway preservationist, born in Coventry and

Ron Cook Ronald G. Cook (born 1 December 1948) is an English actor. He has been active in film, television and theatre since the 1970s. Early life Cook was born in 1948 in South Shields, County Durham, the son of a school cook and a car worker. Whe ...

, stage and screen actor of '' Thunderbirds'' and ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' fame, who first acted as an amateur at the Criterion. The Coventry born actor, Sir Nigel Hawthorne (1929–2001), was a former patron.

Theatre building

The building was built in the 1880s and served as the Earlsdon

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

until 1923, when it was replaced by a new church on the corner of Albany Road and Earlsdon Avenue South. It was then used as a Sunday school and as a venue for a variety of community events. It was sold by the Methodists in 1960 to the ''Criterion Players'', a local church amateur dramatic society that had formed in 1955. The building was converted and with one stage, the Criterion Theatre was opened in 1961 by Mr S.H. Newshome, a patron, who was the managing director of the Coventry Hippodrome (now demolished).

References

External links

Criterion Theatre websiteCoventry City Council. Theatre and the Arts.
Theatres in Coventry {{UK-theat-struct-stub