Taken over by David Horne, it briefly became a successful playhouse including the legendary premiere of Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight, with Sybil Thorndike and Derek Bond – which ran for six months and was the theatre's first transfer to the West End.
The theatre came under threat with the construction of the Stratford shopping centre in the 1970s, but was saved by a public campaign and protected in June 1972 by English Heritage with a Grade II* listing.
In 2001, following a successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid, all of the theatre's front of house and backstage areas were refurbished as part of the Olympiad's Stratford Cultural Quarter project.
[8] In 1990, TRSE scored a massive hit with the premiere of Five Guys Named Moe, which immediately transferred to the West End and won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment.
[9] In 2004, TRSE made history by having the first British Black musical, The Big Life, transfer to London's West End, where it played at the Apollo Theatre.
[10] In 2005, the theatre produced a musical version of the cult Jamaican film The Harder They Come – famous for its reggae soundtrack, which also transferred to the West End.
The Theatre Royal became famous under the management of Gerry Raffles (1928–1975), who worked with director Joan Littlewood on such productions as A Taste of Honey and Oh, What a Lovely War!.
Maxwell Shaw, another member of the original Theatre Workshop, was a character actor on both stage and film, most notably in The Oblong Box and Start The Revolution Without Me.
She went on to run the Crucible Theatre Sheffield from 1981 to 1992, was a founding director of the Actors' Centre and a member of the Arts Council Drama panel.
She was principal of the BRIT School of Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon from 1995 to 1999; and director of education of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1991 until her death in 2003. Notable Venables productions included Old King Cole, The Silver Tassie, The Funniest Man in the World, and Sisters.
He provided traditional entertainment in style of old music hall variety shows on Sunday evenings while seeking to engage with new Asian and Black audiences, as the local demographic changed.
[21] In 2007, Pied Piper won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, as did Cora Bissett's play Roadkill.
In 2012 Stratford East, 'fast becoming one of the UK's most innovative and interactive theatres',[24] launched its Open Stage Project, enabling people to participate with everything from programming ideas to working on productions.
A director and playwright, Nadia Fall has worked extensively at the Royal National Theatre, directing shows including Chewing Gum Dreams, Our Country's Good and Home – which she also wrote.
The season also included the UK premiere of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, Ballet Black, pantomime Sleeping Beauty, Frantic Assembly's The Unreturning by Anna Jordan, a revival of Peter Shaffer's Equus directed by Ned Bennett and co-produced with English Touring Theatre.
Other shows included Pilot Theatre's touring show Noughts & Crosses (novel series), an adaptation of Malorie Blackman's novel by Sabrina Mahfouz, August Wilson's play King Hedley II, directed by Fall and starring Lenny Henry, Cherrelle Skeete, Leo Wringer, Martina Laird, Dexter Flanders and Aaron Pierre as Hedley.
Equus won three Off-West End Awards in 2020, including Best Production, Best Director (Ned Bennett) and Best Lighting Design (Jessica Hung Han Yun).
[29] Fall's second season (Sep 2019 – Jul 2020) opened with Katori Hall's Our Lady of Kibeho and included the return of Ballet Black, pantomime Dick Whittington, Eclipse Theatre's new play The Gift by Janice Okoh and Frantic Assembly's 25th anniversary play I Think We Are Alone by Sally Abbott and co-directed by Kathy Burke and Scott Graham.