Royal & Derngate, Northampton is the main venue for arts and entertainment in Northamptonshire, welcoming more than 378,000 show and film audience members last year. Our diverse programme of drama, music, dance, comedy and film, and our co-produced work was seen by 115,000 people across the country.
We were named Regional Theatre of the Year by the inaugural Stage 100 Awards in 2011, and was nominated again in 2016. We also won the Management Award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre in the 2015 UK Theatre Awards for our Made in Northampton work. The Herbal Bed (a co-production with English Touring Theatre and Rose Theatre Kingston) won the 2016 UK Theatre Award for Best Touring Production. Other recent highlights include nationwide tours of The Jungle Book, Love from a Stranger and Death of a Salesman. Previous acclaimed productions have included Shakespeare’s King John, world premieres of Arthur Miller’s The Hook and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
As a registered charity, we remain ambitious about ensuring that our theatres are for everyone. We encourage young people to take part in our creative learning opportunities via bespoke schools partnerships and weekly activity at the theatres. This weekly programme, reaching more than 21,000 participants last year, attracts a broad section of our community, and also offers opportunities for nurturing new talent through our commitment to artist development.