The Queen's Theatre Hornchurch is a producing theatre located in outer East London in the London Borough of Havering. It produces around eight shows a year and has a vibrant learning and participatory programme engaging over 12,000 participants annually, enabling people to express themselves and their stories through the arts.
The building includes:
· Theatre – end on proscenium, 507 seats with an epic sweep.
· Foyer Stage - flexible space in our spacious foyer seating up to 180, which lends itself well to low tech performances such as stand-up comedy, spoken word, live music and some contemporary work.
· Café – a busy large attractive area overlooking the Queen’s Theatre Green catering day-time through to late night trade, with free Wi-Fi
· Bar – a large area on a lower level catering for before intervals and after performances.
· Workshop – the Queen’s Theatre is home to a talented team of carpenters and scenic artists who construct bespoke sets for in-house productions alongside projects for independent clients. Facilities include a comprehensive woodworking shop and a 12m by 5.2m paint frame, and with access to some metal fabricating.
· Additional facilities – including offices, a small rehearsal room (not suitable for rehearsing main house productions), dressing rooms, costume store, wardrobe, furniture store, props store and a green room.
We believe passionately in the transformative and life-affirming power of theatre. To paraphrase the founder of 7.84 John McGrath, ‘An audience goes into a space, and we use certain devices to tell them a story. They watch the story, and come out, changed. If the work is good, they come out feeling exhilarated: they are more alive for seeing it.’ We strive to achieve this.
The programme of produced work is invigorating, diverse, welcoming, inclusive, inspiring, playful, and of the highest standard. It consists of big stories thrillingly and imaginatively told, including great classic and contemporary plays as well as work for younger audiences. Our audiences will experience productions that celebrate the uniqueness and power of live performance.
Our current and future programmes offer a range of popular titles that nourish an audience and provide high performance values with opportunities to target new visitors to the theatre. They also unite the organisation through programming, learning and participation. Once a year, the main stage programme will have at least one piece that appeals to a schools audience – tying our programme into the needs of the national curriculum. Wrap-around opportunities such as resource packs, master classes, workshops, insight days and talkbacks will continue to be offered around our productions to further strengthen these links. We produced our first annual brochure distributed to all educational institutions in our catchment area enabling greater access to the Queen’s Theatre.
The Queens Theatre will become a Talent Development organisation over the next five years. Our new strand, Outer Limits, is a rolling festival of one-off events of cutting edge modern performance made by performers and companies from Essex and the outskirts of London. Through this programme of work we are opening our doors to independent artists and offering a whole package of support. In return we will be influenced by their creative practice and ideas which will help shape our future programming. Performers’ and practitioners’ personal development will still be paramount to the theatre’s work. Performances will be actor-centric and ensemble-heavy (Douglas Rintoul has worked extensively with the theatre company Complicite and much of his own work is heavily ensemble-based.
