West Yorkshire Playhouse

This theatre replaced the ‘temporary’ 1970 building which was returned to the university for use as a sports hall. Quarry Hill had previously been the site of several huge and eponymous blocks of flats.

The theatre is actually a number of separate, interconnected blocks, occupying a difficult and heavily sloping site. From the front the low, grey slate roofed foyer leads to a series of higher constructions topped by a fly tower of significant proportions as well as a workshop block. The whole of the construction is load-bearing masonry, largely because of the need for acoustic separation, with steel used in the workshop and fly tower.

Visually the theatre is a post modernist exercise in yellow brick with horizontal red brick banding on the majority of faces and with the fly tower having a red brick knitting pattern style with a level of glazing below the banding together with glazed panels. At the rear there is a preponderance of red brick. Internally the light and airy foyers are hospitable and friendly. There are two auditoria, both very different and presenting different challenges. The Quarry Theatre is an amphitheatre of 14 fan shaped heavily raked rows of seating which curves in a 90 degree arc around a wide thrust stage with the actors performing in front of scenery housed within the fly tower. The Courtyard Theatre is a twin galleried rectangle. It is highly flexible and the stalls seats can be arranged in a number of configurations.

The fly tower has 55 counterweight lines. The workshop spaces and other ancillary accommodation are shared by the two theatres. There is a large rehearsal room.

This is a major development for Leeds and surrounding area with good car parking and front of house facilities which encourage people from all walks of life to enter the building.