About us
The Civic Theatre
Rotherham Civic Theatre was opened to the public on 7th March 1960. To celebrate the theatre's 50th birthday we thought it would be nice to share some memories of this special occasion. The building as it stands today had a vibrant history long before the curtain was raised on that first night. Many of you will know that the building is a converted church and was purchased by the council prior to being converted into a theatre in 1960.
The first night's production, Pride and Prejudice performed by Rotherham Rep (who are still going strong), must have been a very exciting and electrifying evening. Many unimaginable things have changed since that opening night, such as computerised box office systems, online booking, radio microphones and intelligent lights. For 50 years, amateur groups have played a vitally important part in the theatre's success and it's testament to their popularity and strength in the town that many of the societies still perform regularly today at the Civic Theatre.
Numerous professional theatre companies have also graced the stage at the Civic. Some people may not know that the world-famous Alan Ayckbourn ended his acting career on our very own stage before becoming the successful playwright that he is today. Other famous faces who have appeared over the years include Honor Blackman, Suranne Jones, The Chuckle Brothers, Ken Dodd, Brian Blessed, Penelope Keith, Joe Pasquale, John Savident and, more recently, Elkie Brooks, Midge Ure and Cannon and Ball to name but a few.
In 1993, the theatre was closed for a short period of time to enable essential improvements including the fitting of an induction loop, new fire escape and brand new bar facilities and toilet blocks.
We estimate that during 50 years the theatre has had approximately 4,000,000 visitors, (nearly 16 times the number of residents currently living in Rotherham Borough), hosted thousands of performances and served over 750,000 cups of tea and coffee. Staff, customers and performers have come and gone over the last 50 years but, for those of you who have visited and worked at the Civic, I'm sure the theatre has provided many lasting memories. The fabric of the building seems to somehow retain all the fun, laughter and tears of all those visitors who have spent memorable evenings in this unique place.
