THE ALMEIDA THEATRE COMPANY was conceived by Lebanese-born, Oxford-educated Pierre Audi in 1978, when he acquired a derelict Salvation Army Hall in an unfashionable part of Islington in North London. The building originally opened in 1837 as the Islington Literary & Scientific Institution, the scene of the "unrolling" of one of the first Egyptian mummies brought to the UK from Thebes.
The original purpose of this unusual building was to open up learning and a knowledge of the arts, especially new scientific discoveries, to the people of Islington. The premises comprised a 500-seat lecture theatre, with the seats climbing steeply up the semicircular back wall, giving the overall impression of an amphitheatre. The building housed a library, museum, reading room and a laboratory. It closed in 1872 and then reopened as a music hall two years later, where cock fighting and wrestling matches replaced the arts.
At the turn of the century, it was turned into a Salvation Army citadel and remained so until Audi stepped in. In 1990 actors Ian McDiarmid and Jonathan Kent took over the artistic direction and the Almeida became a full-time producing theatre for the first time. It is a non-profit producing theatre whose productions regularly play to packed houses and frequently transfer to the West End.
McDiarmid's and Kent's fresh, innovative approach has attracted the finest writers, directors, designers and actors in theater, among them Francesca Annis, Alan Bates, Claire Bloom, Anthony Burgess, Ralph Fiennes, Brian Friel, David Hare, Ian Holm, Nicholas Hytner, Glenda Jackson, John Napier, Julia Ormond, Harold Pinter, Alan Rickman, Dame Diana Rigg and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer.
In 1993 the Almeida won the Laurence Olivier Award (the British equivalent to the Tony Award) for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre. In 1994 the Almeida production of Medea played to full houses on Broadway, earning Dame Diana Rigg a Tony. In 1995 The Almeida returned to Broadway with its award-winning production of Hamlet, starring Ralph Fiennes and Francesca Annis, which also won Fiennes a Tony. Also in 1995, Alan Rickman directed the Almeida's premiere production of Sharman MacDonald's The Winter Guest.
--Portions excerpted fromThe Great Theatres
of London
by Ronald Bergan and Almeida promotional material
The Winter Guest was performed in 1995. The Almeida also hosted a reading of Love in a Cold Climate at the Laura Pels/Roundabout Theatre in New York City in April 1996.
Also see The Almeida Theatre's Web page, especially their QuickTime VR view of the inside of the theatre.
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