Bristol Old Vic, Theatre in King Street, Bristol, England
Bristol Old Vic is a working playhouse on King Street in central Bristol and ranks among the oldest continuously used stages in the United Kingdom. The main auditorium holds 540 people and features a three-tier gallery, while the basement vaults house a smaller studio space.
The playhouse opened in 1766 and initially advertised performances as concerts with spoken recitations to avoid theatre licensing laws. Successive renovations and extensions over the following decades shaped the auditorium as it appears today.
The name comes from the Old Vic theatre in London, with which it shared a charitable trust until 1942. Visitors can walk through the foyer with its Georgian wooden staircases and corridors that still show how people entered this kind of playhouse centuries ago.
Visitors enter through the main door on King Street, which sits a few steps up from the pavement. The in-house bar and restaurant open during the day, offering a chance to explore the interior even when no performance is scheduled.
The building incorporates the Coopers' Hall from 1744, a former guild hall for barrel makers that now serves as entrance area and side room. This unusual merger of two historic functions shows in the contrasting architectural styles within the same complex.
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