Citizens' Theatre

The Citizens Theatre is a principal producing theatre based in the Gorbals area of Glasgow. The theatre includes a 500-seat Main Auditorium and has also included various studio theatres over time, producing a breadth of work, from professional productions for its main auditorium and studio spaces through to an ongoing commitment to creative learning and engaging with the community. The Citizens' Theatre repertory was founded in 1943 by dramatist and screenwriter James Bridie, author of around forty plays presented in Britain and overseas, art gallery director Tom Honeyman, cinema impresario George Singleton, known by many as "Mr Cosmo", whose headquarter cinema continues today as the Glasgow Film Theatre, and Paul Vincent Carroll, whose plays were first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (founder W.B.Yeats) and later on Broadway, winning the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Shadow and Substance (1938) and The White Steed (1939). Under the leadership of James Bridie (Dr O. H. Mavor), the Citizens Company was based at first in the Glasgow Athenaeum. It moved in 1945 to its present site, the then Royal Princess's Theatre (opened 1878), where the building became the Citizens Theatre. While the Citizens Theatre building retains some of the original Victorian architectural features, it has undergone additional renovations and expansions over the years. The main auditorium contains the original (1878) proscenium arch stage, which is raked (slopes down towards the auditorium); it has three seating levels: the stalls, the dress circle and the upper circle (or "gods"). The building contains the oldest original (1878) working understage machinery and paint frame in a working theatre in the United Kingdom. The paint frame is still used for scenic painting and its original glass roof remains.