11
ARTS, CULTURE & TOURISM
Park Street, Cambridge, CB5 8AS
01223 300085
ADC THEATRE
The ADC Theatre is Britain’s
oldest university playhouse.
Plays have been presented on
the site since 1855, when the
Cambridge University Amateur
Dramatic Club was founded,
and the society met and
performed in the back room of
the Hoop Inn. The rooms at first
were cramped and bare and
lacking any proper facilities. In
1860, after the princely sum of
£5 had been levied from each
of the Club’s members, the new
stage of the Hoop Hotel – built
in two more upstairs rooms
leased from Ekin – was opened.
In the 1980s, a volunteer-led
programme of improvements
was carried out and in the
1990s a new counterweight
flying system, for lifting large
pieces of scenery above the
stage, was installed. The bar
was refurbished in 2000, and
during the mid-aughts the
theatre underwent a dramatic
redevelopment to modernise
the facilities and structure of
the building. Today the ADC
Theatre continues to be the
centre of student drama in
Cambridge, hosting ambitious
and professional standard
productions. Recent graduates
continue to go on to great
things, performing in films and
in the West End, touring as
comedians and working in all
areas of theatre.
