‘Great homegrown theatre at the heart of a changing community’
Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (QTH) is the producing theatre serving Outer East London & South Essex, with a catchment area of 1 million+ people. As a community hub, over 220,000 people enjoy the programme each year, including the best in home grown theatre, visiting live entertainment and inspiring community projects. Behind the scenes, sets & costumes are lovingly created on-site by a highly skilled carpentry workshop, scenic artists, prop makers and wardrobe team.
You are guaranteed a warm welcome from a three year winner of UK Theatre’s Most Welcoming Theatre (2016-2018), London Theatre of the Year 2020 (The Stage Awards) – the first Outer London theatre to receive this prestigious award – and 2023 finalist for 8 of the Off West End Theatre award categories for the public’s favourite venue. We are known for new plays, including premieres of Maggie May (Frances Poet), Love Letters (Douglas Rintoul), Misfits (Anne Odeke, Guleraana Mir, Kenny Emson & Sadie Hasler), Stiletto Beach (Sadie Hasler) and Abi (Atiha Sen Gupta). Adaptations have included Neil Bartlett’s Jekyll & Hyde and Vicky Donoghue’s The Witchfinder’s Sister. Its 2022 Blueprint Festival of new works enabled 60+ creative practitioners. We champion working class female playwrights, with Vickie Donoghue, Amanda Whittington, Kelly Jones, Sadie Hasler, Anne Odeke & Guleraana Mir currently commissioned.
Record breaking regional premiere productions of musicals have seen Kinky Boots, The Secret Life of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 – the Musical, Once, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Made in Dagenham on stage in Hornchurch. Productions toured include The Crucible, which undertook a 5 month tour, and a major revival of Kindertransport produced in an innovative international partnership with Les Theatre de la Ville de Luxembourg. We have long established producing partnerships with the New Wolsey Ipswich and Derby Theatre, and has successfully co-produced with the National Theatre, Lee Dean, Central School of Speech & Drama, Selladoor Productions, Hull Truck Theatre, Oldham Coliseum & Salisbury Playhouse.
As a much loved registered charity, we receive regular funding from London Borough of Havering and Arts Council England (recently securing a vital uplift). This is alongside increasing support from a generous range of supporters. Recently we delivered QNew, a £1.3 million pound capital transformation project, the first in 40+ years, creating vital new spaces with access at their heart
The Venue
It opened in a converted cinema in Station Lane (the site of the present Ripon House development) that had been used for storage during the Second World War. The opening production was See How They Run.
The building deteriorated, as buildings will, and the London Borough of Havering built our splendid home in 1974. The current building was opened by Sir Peter Hall in April 1975, with a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
We were honoured with a visit from HM The Queen in 2003, our fiftieth anniversary, and in 2013 we celebrated our Diamond Jubilee.
