Scala Theatre
Encyclopedia
- This is not the same theatre as The Prince of Wales Theatre, in Leicester SquareLeicester SquareLeicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
which was built in 1884, became The Prince of Wales in 1886, and is still existent.
The Scala Theatre was 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...
in London, sited on Charlotte Street
Charlotte Street
Charlotte Street is a well-known street in Fitzrovia, central London, England. The southern half of the street has many restaurants and cafes, and a lively nightlife during the evening; while the northern part of the street is more mixed in character and includes the large office building of the...
, off Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road is a major road in central London, United Kingdom, running from St Giles Circus north to Euston Road, near the border of the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile...
, in the London Borough of Camden
London Borough of Camden
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...
. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire. From 1865-82, the theatre was known as the Prince of Wales's Theatre.
Origins
The theatre began on this site as The New Rooms where concerts were performed, in Charlotte Street, in 1772, under the management of Francis Pasquali. Popularity, and royal patronage led to the building's enlargement by James WyattJames Wyatt
James Wyatt RA , was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical style, who far outdid Adam in his work in the neo-Gothic style.-Early classical career:...
, and its renaming as the King's Concert Rooms (1780–1786). It then became Rooms for Concerts of Ancient Music and Hyde's Rooms (1786–1802, managed by The Directors of Concerts and Ancient Music).
In 1802, a private theatre club, managed by Captain Caulfield, the "Pic-Nics" occupied the building and named it the Cognoscenti Theatre (1802–1808). It became the New Theatre (1808–1815, under Saunders and Mr J. Paul) and was extended and fitted out as a public theatre with a portico entrance, on Tottenham Street.
It continued under a succession of managers as the unsuccessful Regency Theatre (1815–1820), falling into decline. The theatre then reopened as the West London Theatre (1820–1831, under Brunton), Queen's Theatre (1831–1833, 1835–1837, and again 1839-1865), and Fitzroy Theatre (1833–1835 and 1837–1839). The lessee of the theatre from 1843 to 1869 was a scenic artist, Charles James James, and the theatre became the home of lurid melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
, being nicknamed The Dusthole.
Prince of Wales's Royal Theatre 1865-1882
In 1865, the theatre was renovated and named the 'Prince of Wales Royal Theatre' and this continued until its demolition in 1903. The same year, in partnership with Henry ByronHenry James Byron
Henry James Byron was a prolific English dramatist, as well as an editor, journalist, director, theatre manager, novelist and actor....
, Effie Marie Wilton
Effie Bancroft
Marie Effie Wilton, Lady Bancroft was an English actress and theatre manager. She appeared onstage as Marie Wilton until after her marriage in December 1867 to Squire Bancroft, when she usually appeared under the name Lady Bancroft...
assumed the management of the theatre, having secured as a leading actor Squire Bancroft
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
. He starred in J. P. Wooler's A Winning Hazard, among other works. Wilton provided the capital, and Byron wrote a number of plays. His first was a burlesque of La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
. However, Wilton wanted to present more sophisticated pieces. She agreed to produce three more burlesques by Byron, while he agreed to write his first prose comedies, War to the Knife (a success in 1865) and A Hundred Thousand Pounds (1866). By 1867, Byron left the partnership.
The house soon became noted for the successful domestic drama-comedies by Thomas William Robertson
Thomas William Robertson
Thomas William Robertson , usually known professionally as T. W. Robertson, was an Anglo-Irish dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the 1860s that broke new ground and inspired playwrights such as W.S...
, including his series of groundbreaking realist
Realism (dramatic arts)
Realism was a general movement in 19th-century theatre that developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances....
plays, Society
Society (play)
Society was an 1865 comedy drama by Thomas William Robertson regarded as a milestone in Victorian drama because of its realism in sets, costume, acting and dialogue. Unusually for that time, Robertson both wrote and directed the play, and his innovative writing and stage direction inspired George...
(1865), Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869), and M.P. (1870). In 1867, Miss Wilton became Mrs. Bancroft and regularly took the principal female parts in these pieces opposite her husband. Other plays were W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's Allow Me To Explain (1867; this ran as a companion piece to Robertson's Caste) and Sweethearts
Sweethearts (play)
Sweethearts is a comic play billed as a "dramatic contrast" in two acts by W. S. Gilbert. The play tells a sentimental and ironic story of the differing recollections of a man and a woman about their last meeting together before being separated and reunited after 30 years.It was first produced on...
(1874), as well as Tame Cats (1868), Lytton's
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...
Money (1872), The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
(1874), a revival of Boucicault's
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
London Assurance (1877), and Diplomacy (Clement Scott
Clement Scott
Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...
's 1878 adaptation of Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
's Dora). A number of prominent actors played at the theatre during this period, among them Hare
John Hare (actor)
Sir John Hare , born John Fairs, was an English actor and manager of the Garrick Theatre in London from 1889 to 1895.-Biography:Hare was born in Giggleswick in Yorkshire and was educated at Giggleswick school...
, Coghlan
Charles Francis Coghlan
Charles Francis Coghlan , Canadian actor, was born in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and was educated in law.He made his first London appearance in 1860, and became the leading actor at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. He starred in Sweethearts by W. S. Gilbert...
, the Kendals
William Hunter Kendal
William Hunter Kendal was an English actor and theatre manager. He and his wife Madge starred at the Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies beginning in the 1860s. In the 1870s, they starred in a series of "fairy comedies" by W. S. Gilbert and in many plays on the West...
, and Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
.
A big success in 1881 was F. C. Burnand's The Colonel
The Colonel (play)
The Colonel is a farce in three acts by F. C. Burnand based on Jean François Bayard's Le mari à la campagne, first produced in 1844 and produced in London in 1849 by Morris Barnett as The Serious Family....
, which went on to run for 550 performances, transferring to the Imperial Theatre. In 1882, the theatre went dark, and from 1886 to 1903, the theatre buildings were used as a Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
Hostel. A different London theatre began to use the name Prince of Wales Theatre
Prince of Wales Theatre
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...
in 1886.
Scala Theatre 1905-1969
In 1903, Dr. Edmund Distin MaddickEdmund Distin Maddick
Edmund Distin Maddick was an English surgeon and pioneer of cinema.Studying medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, he became a doctor and later a surgeon in the Royal Navy, where achieved the rank of Admiral of the Fleet....
bought the property, and adjoining properties, and enlarged the site. The main entrance was now situate on Charlotte Street, and the old portico, on Tottenham Street became the stage door. The new theatre, designed by Frank Verity
Frank Verity
Francis Thomas Verity was an English cinema architect during the cinema building boom of the post-war years.Verity was born in London, educated at Cranleigh and joined Thomas Verity, his father, in his architectural practice, which specialised in theatre building.Both Veritys bought an interest...
, opened in 1905, as The Scala Theatre, seating 1,139 and boasting a large stage. The new venture was not particularly successful, however, and became a cinema from 1911–1918, run by Charles Urban. In 1918, F. J. Nettlefold took over and ran the premises as a theatre again.
It became known as the New Scala in 1923, with D.A. Abrahams as licensee for both staging plays and showing films, becoming owner in 1925. Amateur productions and pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
were performed, and for a while the theatre became home to the Gang Show
Gang Show
A Gang Show is a theatrical performance with a cast of youth members of Scouts and sometimes Guides too, by invitation. Adult leaders and parents help out behind the scenes. The aim of the shows is to give young people in Scouting and Guiding the opportunity to develop performance skills and...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it again housed professional theatre, reverting to the Scala Theatre. After the war, under the management of Prince Littler, amateur productions returned, with Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
being the annual pantomime. This continued until 1969 when, after a fire, it was demolished for the building of offices, known as Scala House. In 1964, the theatre was used by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
for the concert sequences in the film A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
. Today it is the site of an apartment block.
Further reading
- Baker, Henry Barton. History of the London stage and its famous players (1576-1903). London: Routledge, 1904.
- Howard, Diana. London Theatres and Music Halls 1850-1950. London: The Library Association, 1970.
- Leacroft, Richard. The Development of the English Playhouse. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1976.
- Mander, Raymond & Mitchenson, Joe. The Lost Theatres of London. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company: 1968.
- Mander, Raymond & Mitchenson, Joe. The Theatres of London. London: Harvest, 1963