The West Yorkshire Playhouse, one of the most important of the UK’s regional theatres, plans to close its main spaces for more than a year and reopen after a £15.8m redevelopment with a new entrance, studio and name.
The theatre said on Friday that it would reopen as the Leeds Playhouse, reverting to the name it had before moving to its current home at Quarry Hill in 1990.
James Brining, the theatre’s artistic director, said there were several reasons for the name change, including an entirely practical one. “One of the most frequently asked questions we get is ‘where are you?’” he said. “Maybe it is a classic Yorkshire trait, but we just want to be clear … we’re in Leeds.
“I can’t think of another theatre which names itself after a region rather than the city it’s in. Whenever the Guardian reviews us, you always say West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, and that is a slight oddity. I can’t think of another theatre which has to declare its geographic location twice.”
He stressed that the theatre “loved West Yorkshire” and was not turning its back on the region. “It was the perfect name in 1990, when the West Yorkshire authority existed and it was a distinct geographic and political identity,” he said.
Brining said another reason was the power of Leeds as a brand. “Leeds has brilliant cultural assets, but punches below its weight,” he said.
The city is the home of major arts organisations including Opera North, Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre and Red Ladder Theatre – none of which use the word Leeds.
“Leeds is the heart of Yorkshire, it is the biggest city in Yorkshire. We want to celebrate and promote Leeds around the world,” said Brining.
He said there could have been any number of names for the theatre, but in the end, it was all about Leeds: a “contemporary, diverse, international” city where 170 languages are spoken.
“Leeds does what it needs to do for us, it conjures up that sense of what we want to be … a city that is alive and evolving, and dynamic and diverse, and community focused. That’s what we are and that’s what Leeds is,” Brining said.
The theatre is to become a building site as it goes through its redevelopment, but Brining said the word closure was being avoided.
Instead, there would be a pop-up season of productions in a 350-seat temporary space in one of the theatre’s workshops, as well as at other venues across Leeds.
It will involve an ensemble company of 10 actors for a year, with productions including Jim Cartwright’s Road, A Christmas Carol and Around the World in 80 Days.
The theatre, Brining said, will open with a city-facing entrance, rather than one that comes out on to car parks and bins, improved disabled access, more ladies’ toilets and a third studio space in what are known as the “rock voids”.
“It is a very dry, very quiet environment,” said Brining. “It is the foundations of the building and there is literally bedrock, old discarded bricks and the odd Embassy Regal packet from 1989 chucked there by the builders. It has an extraordinary found space quality.”