The Live Theatre Company is a theatre and company based in Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The company aims to attract new audiences for its accessible work as well as its friendly and informal theatre space.

It was founded in Tyneside

Tyneside

Tyneside is a conurbation in North East England, defined by the Office of National Statistics, which is home to over 80% of the population of Tyne and Wear. It includes the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside — all settlements on...

 in 1973 by Val McLane

Val McLane

Val McLane is an English actress, scriptwriter, director and teacher.She founded the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle in 1973 with director Geoff Gillham...

 and Geoff Gillham. The company originally toured its work regionally to non-traditional theatre settings, such as community halls and working men's club

Working men's club

Working men's clubs are a type of private social club founded in the 19th century in industrial areas of the United Kingdom, particularly the North of England, the Midlands and many parts of the South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class men and their families.-...

s. The company was creating plays and stories that were relevant to the North East

North East England

North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...

 community and sought to break down barriers by presenting this work to ordinary working class people within their own communities.

The company has been based in Newcastle Quayside

Quayside

The Quayside is an area along the banks of the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead in the North East of England, United Kingdom....

 since 1982, expanding over the years to occupy the current premises which combine converted warehouse

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

s and Almshouse

Almshouse

Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

s to create a unique building which houses a theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 auditorium, café bar, rehearsal spaces and administrative offices.

Live Theatre develops new writing talent in the region. The company has enjoyed significant relationships with many writers such as CP Taylor

Cecil Philip Taylor

Cecil Philip Taylor , usually credited as C. P. Taylor, was a British playwright. He wrote almost 80 plays during his 16 years as a professional playwright, including several for radio and television. He also made a number of documentary programmes for the BBC...

, Tom Hadaway

Tom Hadaway

Tom Hadaway was born in North Shields in North East England. It was in the north-east that he began writing plays based on his experiences and observations of the region...

, Alan Plater

Alan Plater

Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...

 and, more recently, Peter Flannery

Peter Flannery

Peter Flannery is a British playwright and screenwriter. He was educated at Bath Spa University and is best known for his work while a resident playwright at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the late 1970s and early 1980s...

, Michael Chaplin

Michael Chaplin (writer/producer)

Michael Chaplin is an English radio, television, theatre, and non-fiction writer and former TV executive and producer.He began his career as a print and television journalist...

, Peter Straughan

Peter Straughan

Peter Straughan is a playwright and author, based in the north-east of England.Peter Straughan was the writer-in-residence at Newcastle's Live Theatre Company. Whilst there, Live staged his plays Bones and Noir...

, Julia Darling

Julia Darling

Julia Darling was an award-winning British novelist, poet and dramatist.-Biography:Julia Darling was born in Winchester in 1956 in the house Jane Austen died in...

, Lee Hall

Lee Hall (playwright)

Lee Hall is an English playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the 2000 film Billy Elliot.-Early life:...

, Sean O'Brien

Sean O'Brien (writer)

Sean O'Brien is a British poet, critic, playwright. Prizes he has garnered include the Eric Gregory Award , the Somerset Maugham Award , the Cholmondeley Award , the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize...

 and Karen Laws. Many plays have been commissioned and produced over the years which are now known nationally and internationally, such as Close The Coalhouse Door, Cooking with Elvis

Cooking with Elvis

Cooking with Elvis is dark comedy by playwright Lee Hall which was first performed in 1999 in Edinburgh.The farce was adapted from a play the author wrote for the award winning BBC Radio God's Country series and premiered in 1999 in Edinburgh. It was also performed at the Edinburgh Festival in...

and A Nightingale Sang.

Live has taken over the lease of a new warehouse building on Broad Chare, immediately adjacent to the previous theatre.

External links