Auditorium Seats Given Away
(15 / 2 / 12)Oldham Coliseum Theatre’s auditorium has now had all 585 chairs removed from their auditorium which will be re-seated ready for when the company returns to the Fairbottom Street site in October.
The original seats have not gone to waste, some will be used in the set for a play at the Royal Exchange, some are now nestled under Waterloo Bridge as part of The Old Vic’s Tunnels project in London, Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter have used the seats to completely re-seat their auditorium and Chichester Festival Theatre will be using Coliseum seats to help build a summer venue made entirely of ‘found’ material. A cinema in Lincoln took over 300 seats to help restore their historic building and six chairs even went to a music shop in Manchester for a window display.
There is a long standing tradition of theatres loaning out props and other equipment and the Coliseum giving away their seats is an excellent example of this. The Coliseum regularly loans equipment, costumes and props to theatres across the North West – Bolton Octagon, Royal Exchange, The Dukes in Lancaster. They even loaned equipment to Manchester International Festival last year.
In July 2011 the theatre launched its 125th Anniversary Appeal asking loyal patrons to make a donation to help make this possible. The new seating will not only be more comfortable but will improve the audience’s view of the stage. A donation of £250 is the equivalent to the cost of one of the new seats in the auditorium and donors will get their support recognised with a personally inscribed plaque placed on one of the new seats. For more information about the appeal email David Martin at davidmartin@coliseum.org.uk
Oldham Coliseum will still be producing plays during their time out of the building. This is a fantastic opportunity for the company to take their work to new venues across Oldham and further afield which will include a nationwide tour of The Hound of the Baskervilles, a fantastic open-air promenade summer production in Alexandra Park and Taking Steps, Dumb Show and Alfie, at The Grange Arts Centre.
