musical.today Stoke, United Kingdom
Regent Theatre
1,600 seats
It was a super cinema first — one of a chain of Regents, opened in 1929 for cine-variety, with a Wurlitzer and a stage for the acts between films. As the Gaumont it took the Beatles, Shirley Bassey and Stevie Wonder; it became a full-time theatre only in 1999.
The building
Provincial Cinematograph Theatres commissioned it and the Lord Mayor opened it in 1929. Gaumont British renamed it in 1950 and it picked up the live bookings the closing Theatre Royal let go. It was cut into three screens in 1974, taken over by Odeon in 1976 and closed when a multiplex opened in 1989.
By the late 1990s the interior had deteriorated badly. The conversion finished in 1999 and gave the city a 1,600-seat lyric theatre, which is what large touring musicals need and a converted cinema does not usually offer.
Opening dates, capacities and architects on this page come from the theatre's own history pages and from Wikipedia.