Remote Connections Show National Theatre Case Study

The National Theatre is a relic of time, being able to be traced back all the way to 1916, with the creation of "The Shakespeare hut" which had 400 seats, where all the staff were women. This would make the theatre approximately 106 years old. The Shakespeare Hut Lasted from 1916-to 1924, had around 350 female volunteers, and the theatre was managed by a woman called Gertrude Forbes Robertson, who was the Co-founder and president of the "Actresses Franchise League" also known as the AFL, which was a women's suffrage organisation. Inside the Hut, Shakespeare's writing was performed alongside new additional writing, recitals as well as musical interludes and play extracts. All Productions were directed, written and performed by women, this includes big names of the time, such as Ellen Terry, Inez Ben Susan, Fabia rake and Edith Craig.  Because of the Hut's success, the women that made it possible were a large part of building a campaign for governmental support to make it known as the National Theatre. Because of the major support and success gathered by the Shakespeare Hut and the actors that played in it, a book writer called Ailsa Grant Ferguson, wrote a book called "The Shakespeare Hut: A story of Memory, Performance, and Identity, 1916-1923" It tells the full story of the women who worked there, including the actors and staff, and their work as a whole. 

It has been over five decades since the Nation Theatre Company, previously run by Laurence Olivier, gave its first performance. Since the opening night of Hamlet on 22nd October 1963, which starred Peter O'Toole as "The Dane". By this point, the National Theatre has created over 800 plays, however, For Its first 13 years, the Company worked at the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo, London, whilst waiting for the current National Theatre to be built. Then in 1976, now under the ownership of Peter Hall, the transition took place and the Deny's Lasdun's National Theatre building was opened by The Queen. Just a year after The Queen had opened the National Theatre, Peter Hall was Knighted, turning his name to, Sir Peter Hall.

In each year since the Queen opened the theatre, it has staged over twenty new productions. Several different ones can be seen every week, with over a thousand performances occurring annually, Given by a Company of around 150 actors to approximately 600 thousand people, with many more seeing National Theatre productions in the West End, on tour, or through the National Theatre live cinema broadcasts. 

Successors to Peter Hall (Image below) as the acting director of the National Theatre, have been Richard Eyre, from 1988 to 1997, after Peter Hall resigned in 1988, Trevor Nunn from 1997 to 2003, Nicholas Hytner from 2003 to 2015 and finally Rufus Norris from April 2015 to the present. 

Sources - https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/about-the-national-theatre

Image Sources taken from various google searches