Everyman Theatre

Everyman Theatre, theatre situated in Hope Street, Liverpool, founded in 1964 by Michael Freeman, Terry Hands, Peter James, and Martin Jenkins. In its early years, it showed a strong commitment to modern drama, with programmes featuring Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Edward Bond, and Peter Nichols, as well as imaginative reworkings of the classics. The theatre formed close links with the community, often staging works on local themes, and established one of the country’s first Theatre in Education companies.

Local writers who have had a strong association with the theatre include Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell, whose first play for its touring company was Sam O' Shanker (1973), and whose Beatles musical John Paul George Ringo… and Bert (1974) was premiered there, before transferring to the West End in London. The auditorium has an open stage design which has often been adapted for unconventional shows, such as The Warp (1980) by Neil Oram, staged by Ken Campbell’s Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, where seating was dispensed with in a 22-hour epic of experimental theatre performed in weekly instalments. Many famous actors, Antony Sher, Jonathan Pryce, Julie Walters, and Pete Postlethwaite among them, have started their careers at the Liverpool Everyman.

In 1993 the theatre was forced into liquidation due to funding cutbacks, but reopened the following year under a new board. Since then it has continued to present a mix of touring and in-house productions, often dealing with controversial issues, such as Scouse—A Comedy of Terrors (1997) in which, with a mischievous nod to the Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico, Liverpool declares itself an independent state; and Guiding Star (1998), by Liverpool-born playwright Jonathan Harvey, which deals with the tragedy of the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool football supporters lost their lives.

In 2000, a new company, the Liverpool and Merseyside Theatres Trust, took over the combined management of the Everyman and Playhouse theatres in the city.