- The National Theatre building houses three separate auditoria:
- The Olivier Theatre (named after the theatre’s first artistic director, Laurence Olivier), is the main auditorium, and was modelled on the ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus; it has an open stage and a fan-shaped audience seating area for 1,160 people. An ingenious ‘drum revolve’ (a five-storey revolving stage section) extends eight metres beneath the stage and is operated by a single staff member. The drum has two rim revolves and two platforms, each of which can carry ten tonnes, facilitating dramatic and fluid scenery changes. Its design ensures that the audience’s view is not blocked from any seat, and that the audience is fully visible to actors from the stage’s centre. Designed in the 1970s and a prototype of current technology, the drum revolve and a multiple ‘sky hook’ flying system were initially very controversial and required ten years to commission, but seem to have fulfilled the objective of functionality with high productivity.
If you would like to read more about Laurence Olivier from Wikipedia.
[button link=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Olivier” newwindow=”yes”] About Laurence Olivier[/button]
- The Lyttelton Theatre (named after Oliver Lyttelton, the National Theatre’s first board chairman) has a proscenium-arch design and can accommodate an audience of 890.
- The Cottesloe Theatre (named after Lord Cottesloe, chairman of the South Bank Theatre board) is a small, adaptable studio space, designed by Iain Mackintosh, holding up to 400 people depending on the seating configuration. The Cottesloe is to be renamed the Dorfman Theatre (after Lloyd Dorfman, philanthropist and chairman of Travelex Group) in 2013 after a redevelopment of the National Theatre, known as “NT Future”.
As well as seeing shows, you can attend talks, listen to music, take backstage tours, view exhibitions, enjoy outdoor performance during the summer months, browse and shop in our Bookshop, sit and relax in our foyers or terraces, and have a cup of coffee, a snack, lunch, or dinner








