The Red Room - Text Only - About the Redroom

The Red Room - Text Only - About the Red Room

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About the Red Room

The Red Room exists to free the imagination against the status quo. We aim to create work that is original, daring, provocative and inspiring, for audiences who question the changing world. We want our work to impact on wider society, so we actively develop our artists and audiences from the widest variety of social and cultural backgrounds. We also involve ourselves in debates and activism around culture and politics. The Red Room believes that theatre should be a genuinely public art form.

The Red Room was originally based above the Lion and Unicorn pub in Kentish Town – we first converted the derelict space there. We opened in October 1995 and in our first extraordinary year premiered 12 new plays including the Night Before Christmas by Anthony Neilson; Bacillus by Kay Adshead and Sunspots by Judy Upton. The Red Room then developed successful seasons of work elsewhere.

The Big Story season about the media at the Finborough in 1997 from which Anthony Neilson’s the Censor transferred to the Duke of York’s and went on to win a Writers Guild Award and Time out Award for Best Fringe Production; three Critics Choice seasons at BAC with Sunspots, Obsession and Surfing – all directed by Lisa Goldman; a two month residency at BAC in 1998 with Seeing Red, a political new writing festival and the first clearly critical theatrical statement against the New Labour government to take place in London. The sixteen writers included Rebecca Prichard; Roddy McDevitt; Peter Barnes; Judy Upton; Tanika Gupta; Helen Kelly; David Eldridge; Roney Fraser Munro; Parv Bancil; Paul Sirett. Two of the plays become highly successful full length commissions over the next few years, developed and directed by Lisa Goldman: Made in England by Parv Bancil and the Bogus Woman by Kay Adshead

The Red Room was created and run on a complete shoestring for seven years without public or private subsidy. We are hugely grateful to all those practitioners who supported the company during that period. We gratefully acknowledge our recent receipt of fixed funding from Arts Council London, and ongoing support from Arts Council England. We always welcome involvement and participation in the Red Room’s work. If you are in a position to donate time, resources or financial support we would love to hear from you.