Connaught Theatre

The Connaught Theatre is a Streamline Moderne-style theatre in the centre of Worthing, in West Sussex, England. Built as the Picturedrome cinema in 1914, the venue was extended in 1935 and became the new home of the Connaught Theatre (established nearby in 1931). The theatre houses touring West End theatre productions, musicals, thrillers, dramas and children's productions. Since 1987 it has been a dual use cinema/theatre with two screens, and has a seating capacity of 512. When it opened, it was a rare example of a conversion from a cinema to a theatre: the reverse was much more common in 1930s Britain, when many theatres became cinemas. The Ritz cinema (also known as Screen 2) at the Connaught is a venue for The End of the Pier International Film Festival.

History

The Connaught Theatre occupies the former Picturedrome cinema, which was built in 1914 on the site of Stanmore Lodge and opened in July of that year. Its seating capacity was 850 in a single tier, with four boxes at the rear, and the auditorium was octagonal. In 1926, Swiss impresario Carl Adolf Seebold, who owned other cinemas in Worthing and who had been the Picturedrome's musical director since it opened, bought it.