Mackintosh Changes Names of UK Theatres to Coward and Novello
By: BWW News Desk May. 27, 2005
The Strand's name change will not proceed until 2005, when the theatre re-opens after a refurbishing period. Similarly, the Albery will become the Noël Coward after ending its own refurbishment at the end of 2006.
Coward, of course, was the debonair playwright/composer/screenwriter/actor/director whose fame came from his witty drawing room comedies and musicals. His plays include Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Design For Living, Present Laughter and Private Lives, while Bitter Sweet, Sail Away and The Girl Who Came to Supper were some of his musicals. Novello was an actor, composer and playwright whose highly romantic musicals included Glamorous Night, Crest of the Wave, The Dancing Years, Perchance to Dream and King's Rhapsody.
The theatre name changes are not arbitrary; Coward's debut as a playwright, I'll Leave It To You, was produced at the Albery when it was still known as the New Theatre. Novello lived above the Strand from 1913 to 1951, penning many of his musicals there.
Macintosh was enthusiastic about the renamed theatres: "As I have put together my group of theatres, I have wanted to give them a sense of identity as well as bring the buildings into the 21st century. . .Ivor Novello's personal connection to The Strand made Novello an obvious choice, and I've long thought the legendary Noël Coward deserved an honor in the West End, a place he did so much to influence and glamorize."
Mackintosh, the producer of such long-running smashes as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Les Miserables, will also add the Sondheim Theatre to his Shaftesbury Avenue theatre row, which additionally includes theatres named after John Gielgud and the actor-manager Charles Wyndham.
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