In 1967 Colin George, the founding artistic director of the Crucible, recommended a thrust stage for Sheffield, inspired by theatres created by Sir Tyrone Guthrie.

The opening night performances were Fanfare, an evening's entertainment showing children acting in an improvised scene, Anton Chekhov's Swansong with Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge, and a music hall finale with a Sheffield brass band.

Colin George and the administrator David Brayshaw persuaded the Gulbenkian Foundation to finance the building of a professional studio theatre – the 400 seat Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse, which opened with the main house.

Productions are normally overseen by the Sheffield Theatres Group which also comprises the smaller Playhouse, housed in the same complex, and the large capacity neighbouring receiving venue the Lyceum.

The World Snooker Championship tournament has been played annually at the Crucible since 1977, and the venue has been lauded for creating a special feeling of excitement around the event.

Sports journalist Peter Mason, in The Guardian, has argued that while the physical aspects of the Crucible are "greatly underwhelming", there is an undeniably special atmosphere inside the auditorium which means that "against all the modernist odds this relentlessly forward-looking theatre appears to have become infused with memories of the past every bit as easily as if it were a creaking old music hall dating back to the 19th century".