The Crucible Theatre

THE CRUCIBLE THEATRE

Theatre, 1969-71, designed by Nicholas Thompson and Robin Benyon of Renton Howard Wood Associates, in consultation with theatre designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch. Consultant engineers Ove Arup Associates. The building has undergone minor late 20th-century alterations and additions.

The structure is reinforced concrete with exposed concrete blockwork walling, glass fibre fascias, and a shallow stepped pyramidal roof with sheet metal covering. The building follows an irregular plan that responds to a significantly sloping site. The dominant motif is the hexagonal form of the central auditorium, which shapes the surrounding foyer and circulation spaces to the south and the back-of-house facilities in the tall northern sector.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The main theatre entrance sits on the lower south elevation, facing onto Tudor Square, with a canted entrance canopy below a deep fascia. Glazed doors are set beneath a canted balcony with a set-back glazed screen to the rear. To the east, where the ground falls away, blockwork walling without openings extends to the Arundel Street frontage beneath a wide fascia. The building returns at an angle onto Arundel Street, where a deeply recessed secondary entrance doorway and display window form a glazed screen below a wide band of blockwork. Above this entrance screen, a recessed balcony with set-back glazing extends to the right as a glazed screen wall set between the blockwork band below and the deep fascia above.

EAST ELEVATION

This elevation reflects the site's slope, with a deep lower ground floor incorporating a shallow band of windows at the wall head. The upper floor has deeper banding of glazing that lights the foyer area, set above the wide blockwork storey band extending from the secondary entrance. Above this, the fascia and the upstand of the stepped roof emphasise the increased height and mass of the building as the ground drops away to the right. At the north end, tall foyer windows end in a wide band of blockwork extending to an angled north corner tower.

NORTH ELEVATION

The building returns westwards with angled blockwork walling incorporating two bands of narrow glazing. It continues as a long frontage expressing the maximum height differential between front and rear of the site, with four bands of narrow glazing, and returns via an angled corner at the stage door entrance, deeply recessed below the cantilevered upper floors.

WEST ELEVATION

Directly south of the stage door is a tall vehicular entrance to the loading bay with splayed side walls. The east wall continues to the angled return onto the south elevation, where a deep canopy extension to the original design covers the entrance to the Studio Theatre and lower foyer.

INTERIOR

Public spaces are arranged on two main levels. Access from the main entrance foyer leads downwards to the Studio Theatre, relocated ticket office, cloakrooms and toilets, and upwards to the main auditorium, foyer bar and café spaces. Wide stairways with polished concrete and exposed concrete block flanking walls provide access between levels.

The main auditorium is accessed by five tall doorways and comprises four areas of steeply tiered seating arranged around the five sides of the thrust stage. Let into the seating at stage level are two angles allowing access for performers to and from the front of the stage. Above the auditorium is an extensive lighting gallery formed with intersecting catwalks. Below the stage is an extensive understage area incorporating steelwork that supports the stage. This steel framework can be lowered in height according to the needs of specific activities in the auditorium.

To the rear of the stage is an extensive back-stage area leading to a store bay, extensive carpenters shop, paint shop and loading bay. To the west of the auditorium is the Studio Theatre with its own lower foyer area and access from Tudor Square. To the east and west are rehearsal rooms and dressing rooms, with further dressing rooms, offices and service facilities in the rooms above, finished mainly in utilitarian blockwork.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

The Crucible Theatre was planned as part of a civic development in Sheffield city centre, as a replacement for an existing repertory theatre. Its design was strongly influenced by the ideas of Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971), the most significant theatre designer of the second half of the 20th century, whose theories influenced almost every new theatre built in England from the 1960s onwards, including the Chichester Festival Theatre (1962) and the Olivier Theatre (1976). Guthrie's experience of staging a production in the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland at the second Edinburgh Festival in 1948 proved revelatory. The thrust stage of the Assembly Hall created, as he saw it, a much more dynamic and participatory relationship between performers and an audience ranged around them on three sides, than was possible in a theatre separating the two elements either side of the proscenium.

The Crucible is considered the most ambitious of the local authority-funded theatres designed for a repertory company, and was the first open-stage theatre commissioned for a resident company. It enjoys a reputation as one of the most innovative and successful regional theatres and is additionally renowned as the venue for the World Snooker Championships.

The Crucible Theatre forms a group with The Lyceum Theatre, the Central Library, The Roman Catholic Cathedral Church of St Marie, The Upper Chapel and the Victoria Hall Methodist Church.