West End Theatres, the venues for professional drama in central London. The West End has become the phrase to describe about 40 commercially owned theatres in central London in the same way that Broadway has become synonymous with New York theatres. The West End has Shaftesbury Avenue and its six theatres running through the heart. The main theatre operators in the West End are the Ambassador Theatre Group; the Really Useful Group, founded in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber; Delfont Mackintosh (Bernard Delfont and Sir Cameron Mackintosh); Nimax Theatres (Max Weitzenhoffer and Nica Burns); producer Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen, former president of the Society of London Theatre (2002-2005); and Live Nation (formerly Clear Channel Entertainment).

The Ambassador Group comprises nine theatres (the Comedy, Donmar Warehouse, Duke of York's, Fortune, Phoenix, Piccadilly, Playhouse, Savoy, and Trafalgar Studios—formerly Whitehall Theatre); the Really Useful Group consists of seven theatres (the Adelphi, Cambridge, Drury Lane (Theatre Royal), Her Majesty’s, London Palladium, New London, and Palace theatres); Delfont Mackintosh Theatres operates seven theatres (Gielgud, Noel Coward, Novello, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Queen's, and Wyndham's); Nimax Theatres operates five theatres (Apollo (Shaftesbury Avenue), Duchess, Garrick, Lyric, and Vaudeville); Waley-Cohen owns three theatres (Ambassadors, St Martin's, and Victoria Palace); and Live Nation operates three venues (Apollo Victoria, Dominion, and Lyceum). Cameron Mackintosh announced plans in 2003 to create, above the existing Queen’s Theatre, a new 500-seat venue, The Sondheim, the first new theatre to be built on Shaftesbury Avenue for more than 70 years. Other London theatres are run by individual companies, such as the English Stage Company (Royal Court).

An Act of Parliament in 1971 declared many of the above theatres to be permanently protected as preserved buildings. Buildings listed as Grade I, the preservation of which is a matter of public concern, include Drury Lane, the Royal Opera House, and the Haymarket. A listing in Grade II denotes a building to be of such architectural or historic importance that no rebuilding or demolition can take place without special permission. All those built prior to 1920 are listed Grade II, as are the Savoy and the Phoenix theatres.

Producers of plays and musicals can rent these theatres either for an agreed weekly fee, or on sharing terms, by which the gross box-office receipts are divided on an agreed proportion between the landlord and the producer. Two weeks’ notice can usually be given, by either party, when the total box-office receipts fall below an agreed figure for two consecutive weeks.

The accompanying chart lists the theatres that comprise the West End as defined by the Society of London Theatres. The dates given refer to the year of the first theatre building of that name on that site.

Three of the theatres have permanently resident companies. The Coliseum is the home of the English National Opera, while the Royal Opera House houses the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet companies. On the South Bank, the Royal National Theatre mounts its own productions in three auditoriums (the Olivier, the Lyttelton, and the Cottesloe). From 1982 to 2002 the Barbican Centre was the London base of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Outside the West End other London theatres include the Almeida, the Gate (Notting Hill), the Hackney Empire, the Lyric at Hammersmith, the Mermaid, and Sadler's Wells, as well as innumerable other fringe, pub, community, and club theatres (see Fringe Theatre).