Donmar Warehouse London

Venue Information

Donmar Warehouse
Address: 41 Earlham Street, London, WC2H 9LX
Nearest Tube or Train: Leicester Square, Covent Garden
Nearest Buses: 14, 19, 24, 29, 38, 176, N5, N19, N20, N29, N38, N41, N279

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get to the Donmar Warehouse?

Public transport is recommended to travel to the Donmar Warehouse. The nearest tube stations are Leicester Square, Covent Garden. If arriving by bus, then the nearest bus lines are 14, 19, 24, 29, 38, 176, N5, N19, N20, N29, N38, N41, N279. If driving to the theatre, the nearest car parks are Q-Park Chinatown (more parking information). For directions to the Donmar Warehouse see our Google Maps directions or Apple Maps directions.

Theatre Quick Facts

Date opened: 18 July 1977
First production: Schweik in the Second World War
Number of seats: 251
Theatre owner: ATG

The Donmar Warehouse is a not-for-profit theatre based in Covent Garden in London.

Before becoming a theatre, this historic building was a vat room and hops warehouse for a local brewery in Covent Garden in the 1870s. It’s life in entertainment started in the 1920s when the building was used as a film studio, before reverting back into a warehouse to be a banana ripening depot for nearby Covent Garden market.

Then around 1953, famous theatrical producer Donald Albery (who gave his name to the Albery Theatre before it became the Noel Coward Theatre), bought the warehouse. Its name comes from the first three letters of his name and the first three letters of his wife’s middle name – Margaret.

Donald’s son Ian, who also became a theatre producer, initially converted the warehouse into a rehearsal studio.

The Donmar became a proper theatre in 1977 when the Royal Shakespeare Company bought the building and renamed it the Warehouse – ready to transfer their production of Schweik in the Second World War, directed by Howard Davies, from the Other Place in Stratford, which opened the theatre on 18 July. Apparently the speed at which they converted the building into a theatre meant that the concrete entrance steps were still wet then the audience started arriving!

Other RSC productions at the Warehouse included Trevor Nunn’s 1976 Macbeth starring Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, which opened at the Warehouse in September 1977 before transferring to the Young Vic; and Educating Rita, starring Julie Walters and Mark Kingston, directed by Mike Ockrent.

Nica Burns, of Nimax theatres, was artistic director from 1983 to 1989, before theatre producer Roger Wingate acquired the Donmar Warehouse in 1990 as a not-for-profit trust, installing Sam Mendes as Artistic Director. Wingate remains a board member of the Donmar to this day, and had the venue completely rebuilt before the re-opening.

The venue is now managed by ATG.

Subsequent artistic directors have includedMichael Grandage, Josie Rourke, and currentlyMichael Longhurst.