Gate Theatre Studio, often referred to as simply the Gate Theatre, is a former independent theatre on

Villiers Street Villiers Street is a street in London connecting Strand, London, the Strand with Thames Embankment, the Embankment. It is partly pedestrianised; traffic runs northbound only up to John Adam Street, where vehicles must turn right. It was built by ...

in London.

History

Founded in October 1925 by Peter Godfrey and his wife Molly Veness, the theatre was originally on the top floor of a ramshackle warehouse at 38 Floral Street,

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

and could hold an audience of 96. Then known as "the Gate Theatre Salon" (The Gate to Better Things), it opened that year on 30 October with Godfrey's production of

Susan Glaspell Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company. First know ...

's ''Berenice'', starring Veness as Margaret, 'the searcher for truth', and ran for a fortnight. With a series of challenging productions, including

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 pla ...

's '' The Dance of Death'', the Gate struggled to survive without attracting any particular attention. The history of the studio was typical of many small independent theatres of the period, until the

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

critic

James Agate James Evershed Agate (9 September 1877 – 6 June 1947) was an English diarist and theatre critic between the two world wars. He took up journalism in his late twenties and was on the staff of ''The Manchester Guardian'' in 1907–1914. He late ...

, enthusiastically reviewed

Georg Kaiser Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, (25 November 1878 – 4 June 1945) was a German dramatist. Biography Kaiser was born in Magdeburg. He was highly prolific and wrote in a number of different styles. An Expressionist dramatist, ...

's ''

From Morn to Midnight ''From Morn to Midnight'' () is a 1920 German silent expressionist film directed by Karlheinz Martin based on the 1912 play ''From Morning to Midnight'' by Georg Kaiser. It is one of the most radical films of the German Expressionist movement. ...

'' and urged readers to apply for membership of the theatre and go and see the production. At the end of a scheduled three-week run, the play was transferred to the Regent Theatre in King's Cross when

Claude Rains William Claude Rains (10 November 188930 May 1967) was a British and American actor whose career spanned almost seven decades. He was the recipient of numerous accolades, including four Academy Award nominations for Academy Award for Best Supp ...

took over the leading role from Godfrey. In March 1927 the Gate Theatre Salon closed and the company moved to a site at 16A Villiers Street,'underneath the arches' close to Charing Cross Station. Peter Godfrey entered into a new business partnership with Miss Velona Pilcher. The new Gate Theatre Studio was constructed out of a complex of premises acquired by

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which included Gatti's Underneath the Arches Musical Hall (now the

Players' Theatre The Players' Theatre was a London theatre which opened at 43 King Street, Covent Garden, on 18 October 1936. The club originally mounted period-style musical comedies, introducing Victorian-style music hall in December 1937. The threat of Worl ...

). Reconstruction delayed the first two productions of the third season which were given at the

Rudolph Steiner Theatre Rudolf Steiner House is a Grade II listed building near Regent's Park, London which is the home of the Anthroposophical Society of Great Britain. The building was designed by Montague Wheeler in the expressionist Expressionism is a modern ...

. It was not until 22 November 1927 that the newly named Gate Theatre Studio opened with ''Maya'', a play by

Simon Gantillon Simon Gantillon (7 January 1887 in Lyon – 9 September 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a 20th-century French screenwriter and playwright. Filmography ; Screenwriter * 1932: '' Sergeant X'' by Vladimir Strizhevsky * 1938: ''Gibraltar'' by Fedor ...

, with

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies Dame Gwen Lucy Ffrangcon-Davies (25 January 1891 – 27 January 1992) was a British actress who worked mainly in theatre and television, as well as radio and film. She made her last acting appearance as a centenarian in 1991. Early life She wa ...

in the lead, again produced by Godfrey and receiving 53 performances. By 1934, Godfrey, a man grown tired of shouldering the administrative burden of a theatre, handed it over to a new company formed by Norman Marshall, who took over and refurbished the Gate Theatre Studio, reviving the theatre's reputation, often financing his productions by running highly successful theatrical revues in parallel.

West End transfers

Productions, several of which transferred to the West End following censorship troubles with the

Lord Chamberlain The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Households of the United Kingdom, Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Monarchy of the United Ki ...

, included

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

's ''

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'' (1931),

Laurence Housman Laurence Housman (; 18 July 1865 – 20 February 1959) was an English playwright, writer and illustrator whose career stretched from the 1890s to the 1950s. He studied art in London and worked largely as an illustrator during the first years o ...

's ''

Victoria Regina Victoria Regina or ''variation'', may also refer to: * Victoria Regina (or Victoria R.), a latinate form of address for queens named Victoria, see Queen Victoria (disambiguation) * ''Victoria Regina'' (play), a 1934 stageplay by Laurence Housman a ...

'' (1935),

Elsie Schauffler Elsie may refer to: People and fictional characters * Elsie (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Lily Elsie (1886–1952), English actress and singer born Elsie Hodder * Robert Elsie (1950–2017), Canadian expert in Albanian ...

's '' Parnell'' (1936),

Lillian Hellman Lillian Florence Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American playwright, Prose, prose writer, Memoir, memoirist, and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway as well as her communist views and political activism. She was black ...

's '' The Children's Hour'' (1936),

John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...

's ''

Of Mice and Men ''Of Mice and Men'' is a 1937 novella written by American author John Steinbeck. It describes the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant worker, migrant ranch workers, as they move from place to place in California ...

'' (1939) and

Reginald Beckwith William Reginald Beckwith (2 November 190826 June 1965) was an English film and television actor, who made over one hundred film and television appearances in his career. He died of a heart attack aged 56. Beckwith was also a film critic and ...

's ''

Boys in Brown ''Boys in Brown'' is a 1949 black and white British drama film directed by Montgomery Tully and starring Jack Warner, Richard Attenborough, Dirk Bogarde and Jimmy Hanley. It was written by Tully based on the 1940 play ''Boys in Brown'' by the ...

'' (1940). In 1936 the young

Robert Morley Robert Adolph Wilton Morley (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, often in ...

, played the lead in the Stokes brothers' ''

'' and later took the play to

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

''The Other Theatre''

In the 1930s The Gate Theatre Studio was one of a number of small, committed, independent theatre companies which included the Hampstead Everyman, the

Arts Theatre The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It opened on April 20, 1927. History It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre cen ...

Club and

Q Theatre The Q Theatre was a British theatre located near Kew Bridge in Brentford, west London, which operated between 1924 and 1958. It was built on the site of the former Kew Bridge Studios. The theatre, seating 490 in 25 rows with a central aisle, wa ...

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. These theatres were able to avoid the Lord Chamberlain's censorship by operating as theatre clubs, where membership was obligatory, and took risks by producing new and experimental plays, or plays by unknown or commercially unviable writers. Norman Marshall refers to these as ‘The Other Theatre’ in his 1947 book of the same name.

Bomb damage in World War II

The '' Gate Revues'', several starring

Hermione Gingold Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold (; 9 December 189724 May 1987) was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric character. Her signature drawling, deep voice was a result of nodules on her vocal cords she developed in the 1920s and ea ...

who made her first professional appearance at the Gate, restored intimate revue to favour in the West End. However following serious bomb damage in 1941, the same air raid that destroyed the

Little Theatre in the Adelphi The Little Theatre in the Adelphi was a 250-seat theatre in London, in a site to the south of Strand, London, the Strand. It was opened in 1910, damaged in a German air raid in the First World War and rebuilt in 1919–20. German bombs again hit ...

, the theatre was finally forced to close. It was never to re-open although, according to Norman Marshall, the manpower and material needed to resuscitate it would have been very small.

References

*Philip Godfrey, ''Back Stage'', George Harrap, London, 1933. *Norman Marshall, ''The Other Theatre'', John Lehmann, London, 1947. *Norman Marshall, ''The Producer and the Play'', Macdonald, London, 1957. *Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson ''The Lost Theatres of London'', Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968; revised and re-issued by the New English Library, 1976 {{ISBN, 0-450-02838-0 *Charlotte Purkis 'Velona Pilcher's Promotion of an Intercontinental Theatrical Avant-Garde', in: Nitz, Petrulionis and Schoen (Eds.) (2016) ''Intercontinental Crosscurrents: Women's Networks Across Europe and the Americas'', Winter Verlag Heidelberg, pp. 71–90. Former buildings and structures in the City of Westminster Former theatres in London Theatres in the City of Westminster Studio theatres in London 1941 disestablishments in England Theatres completed in 1927