Venue Information
Donmar WarehouseAddress: 41 Earlham Street, London, WC2H 9LX
Nearest Underground or Train Station: 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
Access phone number: 020 3282 3808
Access email address: access@donmarwarehouse.com
Accessible toilets situated: Circle
Number of Wheelchair spaces: Stalls x2
Sound amplification: Induction Loop & Sennheiser Infrared
Access from street to foyer: Stairs & ramp
Access from theatre foyer to seats (number = stairs): 26 to Stalls, 49 to Circle
Level access: N/A
Stair lift, lift or ramp available: Lift to all levels
Donmar Warehouse Facts
What date did the Donmar Warehouse open?
18 July 1977
What was the first production at the Donmar Warehouse?
Schweik in the Second World War
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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.
Theatre Previous Shows
Past shows that have played at the Donmar Warehouse include:
A Dolls House, Part 2Marys Seacole
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