Southwark Playhouse unveils plans for second venue in London Bridge

Another theatre gets the green light! A second Southwark Playhouse venue is set to open at Colechurch House in London Bridge from 2025.

The £10m purpose-built venue will have two theatre spaces (with 250 seats and 150 seats respectively), a café bar and dedicated front and back of house facilities, as part of developer CIT's redevelopment of a 1960s office block.

The new venue is to be the second space to open under the Southwark Playhouse team, with a new building to open in Elephant and castle next year.

Southwark Playhouse artistic director and CEO, Chris Smyrnios, said: "The move back to London Bridge has been a long time in the making, with many twists and turns. This deal with CIT brings us back to the London Bridge area and gives us a brand new venue that provides us with much needed capacity, critical to ensuring the future of our organisation.

"The new theatre and our involvement has been central to CIT's plans for Colechurch House from the beginning. They and their architects Foster and Partners have worked tirelessly to get the space and the deal right for us all through the depths of the pandemic.

"We get a brilliant new theatre that sits right at the gateway to London Bridge Station. It will mark a step change in our artistic output, and also open up exciting new possibilities for our youth and community programmes."

Note: a previous version of this article featured a production image provided to the press by the venue from a recent revival of a hit musical. Foster and Partners have since withdrawn this photo from circulation.

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