Today The Rep produces a wide range of drama in its three auditoria – The House with 825 seats, The Studio with 300 seats and The Door with 140 seats – much of which goes on to tour nationally and internationally.
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12 Facts About Birmingham Rep
2.
Birmingham Rep retains its commitment to new writing and in the five years to 2013 commissioned and produced 130 new plays.
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3.
Construction started the following month and the building – now the Old Birmingham Rep – opened with a production of Twelfth Night only four months later, on 15 February 1913.
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4.
Previous companies had taken over large commercial theatres and been governed by Boards of Directors; the Birmingham Rep occupied a small-scale auditorium that seated only 464 and was under the sole control of Jackson, whose combination of the roles of patron and artistic director was unique in British theatrical history, allowing the development of a far more imaginative and eclectic programme.
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5.
In 1932, in addition to the programme in Birmingham Rep, there were seven productions in London, a season at Malvern and national tours of Britain and Canada – in the 1980s it was commented that "it is difficult to conceive how even an organisation as well-endowed today as the National Theatre or Royal Shakespeare Company could achieve such miracles within twelve months".
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6.
The scale of Jackson's financial commitment to The Birmingham Rep was revealed by the recollections of George Bernard Shaw of his first meeting with Jackson in 1923:.
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7.
Birmingham Rep named an annual sum that would have sufficed to support fifty labourers and their families.
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8.
Birmingham Rep said a theatre was better fun than a steam yacht, but said it in the tone of a man who could afford a steam yacht.
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9.
Actors who first rose to prominence at the pre-war Birmingham Rep included Laurence Olivier, Cedric Hardwicke, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Edith Evans, Stewart Granger and Ralph Richardson.
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10.
All British theatres were closed for the first month of the war, and when the Birmingham Rep reopened ticket sales were poor and staff had to take pay cuts.
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11.
However, the Birmingham Rep began to stop making profits as the country was hit by recession.
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12.
Birmingham Rep continued to perform from other local theatres during that time.
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