Royal Court Postpones Jan 2000 Re-Opening

London's Royal Court Theatre, the important producing theatre in Chelsea's Sloane Square that is especially renowned both in Britain and abroad for its promotion of new writing, has announced that it will not be able to re-open for business on January 7, 2000, as originally announced.

The theatre, which has been undergoing a massive refurbishment for the last three years at a cost of some £25million, partly funded by an award from the national lottery, had announced a season of six new plays, including new work by Conor McPherson, Jim Cartwright and Martin Crimp in the main house, and three more plays in the studio space, the Theatre Upstairs. McPherson and Cartwright both scored notable successes with their early work at the Court, including The Weir (in a production subsequently seen on Broadway and still running in the West End at the Duke of York's Theatre) and Road respectively.

During the period of the theatre's closure, the theatre's producing programme has continued with residencies at two West End addresses, the Duke of York's and the Ambassadors.

With the building work not yet complete on the new theatre, it is expected that artistic director Ian Rickson will relocate the opening production, the world premiere of McPherson's Dublin Carol to the Old Vic Theatre. Rickson himself directs a cast that includes Brian Cox. The postponment of the re-opening is the theatre's fourth: previous deadlines missed were May 1998; May 1999; and November 1999.

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