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Address:
Queens Theatre
Shaftesbury Avenue
W1D 6BA
Theatre location
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Seating plan
Queens Theatre
Nearest tube
Picadilly Circus/Leicester Square
The Queen''s Theatre is a theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End
of London, next to the Gielgud Theatre, as whose twin it was designed
by W. G. R. Sprague at the beginning of the 20th century. The theatre
opened in 1906. As opposed to the Gielgud, whose exterior has little
changed, the facade of the Queen''s Theatre was hit by a German bomb in
September 1940 so that the theatre today has a modern shell and an
Edwardian interior.
The Queen''s Theatre has seen such talents as Edith Evans, George
Bernard Shaw, John Gielgud, Noel Coward, Kenneth Branagh, Miranda
Richardson, Nigel Hawthorne, Jane Lapotaire, Alec Guinness, Fiona Shaw
and Maggie Smith.
Since April 2004, the theatre has played host to Cameron Mackintosh''s
production of Les Miserables which transferred, after 18 years from the
Palace Theatre just 100m up the road. The musical celebrated its 20th
anniversary at the venue on 8th October 2005 and will overtake Cats as
the longest running musical of all time on 8th October 2006 should it
continue.
The Queen''s is set to form part of owner Cameron Mackintosh''s
masterplan for a new Shaftesbury Avenue theatre complex. As part of
this scheme, the foyer will be amalgimated with the adjoinding Gielgud
Theatre (also owned by Mackintosh), and the Queen''s is to be reformed
into 1200 seats over two levels. On the roof, will be the new Sondheim
Theatre scheduled to open in late 2007.
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