Gateway Theatre

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Chester's Gateway Theatre was renowned for producing and receiving a spectacular range of innovative and unusual drama, dance and comedy including Chester Gateway LIVE youth theatre, local amateur and community productions. It also hosted concerts and readings for Chester's various festivals.

Based in a purpose-built building on Hamilton Place, behind the Forum,

[edit] Financial problems and Hansard

Lord Harrison was quoted in Hansard of 5 October 2000 as saying:

• "Recently I was reappointed as governor of The Gateway Theatre in Chester. I declare an interest. It is a fine playhouse which has struggled financially over the past 20 years, leading to its recent temporary closure. Revived and now producing theatre of the highest quality, it survives on a shoestring. Each night's performance is literally threatened with imminent darkness while we wait for the funds to replace a defective lighting system. The Gateway's travails illustrate all too tellingly the benighted state of English theatre today as so graphically depicted in tonight's excellent and influential report, The Roles and Functions of the English Regional Reproducing Theatre. How grateful we are for Peter Boyden--at last "The Inspector Calls". Peter Boyden notes the underlying strength of our theatre. Like many of its contemporaries, The Gateway Theatre still produces quality under fire. Indeed, many of the eight challenges promulgated in the national policy of the Arts Council of England, published in July 2000, are already part of The Gateway's central philosophy and culture. Its education work in local schools and youth clubs, in collaboration with the South Cheshire Health Authority, dramatises for instance the problem of drugs for young people in a way that mere prescription and proscription cannot. Its recent production of the Polychronicon illustrating the fascinating story of Chester past and present, using professional actors alongside local school talent brilliantly achieves the ACE's goal of recreating local and regional distinctiveness. The theatre's imaginative collaboration with the BP/Amoco oil company has developed a mode of working way beyond static sponsorship."

His telling comments revealed not only the innovative activities of the last theatre in Chester, but also the perilous state of its finances.

[edit] The final curtain

The Gateway closed one year short of its 40th birthday. All staff were made redundant, including the box-office manager who had worked there for 32 years.

The final event at the Gateway took place on 31 March 2007 – a performance of Hello Dolly. A party was held afterwards for more than 200 ex and existing staff.

A news report of the last performance