Octagon Theatre, Bolton
The Octagon Theatre is a producing theatre located in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England.
Programme
The Octagon produces between eight and nine professional theatre productions a year in its Main Auditorium. Productions come from a wide range of types and genres, including classic drama, contemporary plays, comedies and musicals.
In recent years, the Octagon has specialised in producing great American drama including works by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
The Octagon also runs its BoltON season, which runs alongside the season of plays in the Main Auditorium, with events investigating or complimenting the main season. This ranges from professional practical workshops to full day Investigate Days with casts and creative team.
In addition to its own productions, the Octagon also plays host to touring shows, including touring theatre, children's plays and stand-up comedy.
Performance spaces
The Octagon has two performance spaces:
The Main Auditorium, is a flexible performance space which can present work in three different configurations (in-the-round, thrust and end-stage) and has a capacity ranging from 300 to 400. Over the course of the season, the Octagon will present work in all of these configurations. Strangely, the Main Auditorium actually has a hexagonal shape, and it is because the name Hexagon Theatre was already in use, in Reading, that the name Octagon Theatre was chosen instead. Then, to add to the confusion, another theatre, The Johnson Hall, in Yeovil, changed its name to the Octagon Theatre too. Stranger yet, the theatre's logo, originally an octagon, has since been replaced with a circle.