Regent's Park Open Air Theatre
Established in 1932, the multi-award-winning Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is one of the most artistically celebrated and successful independent producing theatres in the UK. With an auditorium of 1,304 seats, the scale and ambition of our productions together with our magical outdoor setting, makes us unique in the country’s cultural landscape.
Passionate about producing popular, enriching and unexpected theatre that provides a lens into the here and now, we welcome 180,000 people to our 20-week summer season every year.
Over the last fifteen years, our productions have won ten Olivier Awards, ten WhatsOnStage Awards, and four Evening Standard Awards; our 2024 production of Fiddler on the Roof holds the record for the most nominated musical revival in the history of the Oliviers. In 2025, we were one of six UK theatres to be shortlisted for Theatre of the Year by The Stage, and we received the Highly Commended Award for Visitor Attraction or Events Venue of the Year at the Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Business Awards.
Beyond the Park, our productions continue to tour the UK and internationally, reaching a live audience of just under 1 million people worldwide in 2025 alone. Our 2016 revival of Jesus Christ Superstar is celebrating its tenth year of international touring, currently visiting Asia and New Zealand; the production is also transferring to The London Palladium this summer, followed by a run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Fiddler on the Roof will tour Australia from July this year, following its transfer to the Barbican Centre and UK & Ireland tour in 2025. Our new production of CATS will undertake a major tour of the UK & Ireland from October 2026.
As a registered charity that receives no regular public subsidy, we rely entirely on earned income and charitable contributions. Nevertheless, we have over 46,000 tickets at £25 or under available across the whole of 2026’s summer season, and we regularly work with a range of local stakeholders, civic partners, schools and community groups on a number of learning and engagement initiatives. Each year, on average, we subsidise tickets for 6,000 school pupils.
Our flagship artist development programmes include our Open Room observerships, the Theatre Dance Lab for early-career musical theatre choreographers, and The Treehouse Project workspace initiative.
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is led by Joint Chief Executives Drew McOnie (Artistic Director, since 2024) and James Pidgeon (Executive Director, since 2021).
Unicorn Theatre
Transforming young lives through theatre.
At the Unicorn we create new, inventive and enthralling theatre experiences for children aged up to 13. Every year, we welcome around 65,000 families and schools through our doors, and many thousands more through Unicorn Online.
We believe that young people of all ages, perspectives and abilities have the right to experience exciting, entertaining and inspiring work and we actively seek out children who wouldn’t otherwise attend, offering free tickets where needed. Through our Creative Hub, we develop productions with children from our local partner schools and communities to ensure that our work remains relevant and informed by the young people
we serve.
About Unicorn's Creative Hub
The Unicorn places children at the centre of our work, inviting them to become our collaborators. Through our Creative Hub, children aged 0 – 13 years have the opportunity to connect with artists and facilitators and together they develop Unicorn productions, influencing and shaping the work on our stages.
Through this programme, we work with local children and young people and invite them into the research, development and delivery of our shows, wherever possible. We also create activities for our audiences and ensures that those living closest to the theatre have access to Unicorn productions through our Locally Funded
Tickets scheme. Our bespoke partnership programmes support local schools by delivering creative approaches to learning.
Birmingham Rep
Birmingham Rep has been at the forefront of theatre in the UK for over 100 years. The Rep has an unparalleled pioneering history and is the only producing theatre in the UK’s Second City. It is the oldest building-based theatre company in the UK, and the forerunner of both the RSC and the National Theatre.
The Rep’s mission is to create artistically ambitious, world-class theatre for everyone. The commissioning and production of new work lies at the core of The Rep’s programme, and over the last 15 years the company has produced more than 130 new plays. Many of The Rep’s productions go on to have lives beyond Birmingham.
The Rep’s acclaimed learning and outreach programme is one of the largest and most diverse of any arts organisation in the country. The Rep has nurtured new talent throughout its history - from Laurence Olivier and Peter Brook to its modern-day youth theatre, and the ground-breaking Rep Foundry theatre-makers programme, it has offered opportunity and training for thousands of early career writers, directors, and artists.
Joe Murphy became Artistic Director of The Rep in March 2025
