John Counsell OBE (April 24, 1905 – February 23, 1987) was an English actor, director and theatre manager, who (with his wife Mary Kerridge) ran the Theatre Royal, Windsor and its in-house repertory company from the 1930s to the 1980s. His daughter is the actress Elizabeth Counsell, and he was uncle to the actress and painter Jean Miller. Born in Beckenham, to Claud Counsell and Evelyn Fleming, the bulk of Counsell's career was spent in Windsor repertory theatre and the West-end stage.
In 1930 Counsell served as an apprentice at the Theatre Royal in Windsor, Berkshire, when it reopened as a theatre after a short time as a cinema. In 1933 he took over managing the theatre; the venture lasted only a few months before it went bankrupt, but the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II attended one of the last performances, coming from nearby Windsor Castle. Counsell re-opened the theatre in 1938 and was able to establish a viable company that ran without government subsidies. He and his actress wife Mary Kerridge ran the theatre until his retirement in 1986, the year before his death.
Theatre Royal is the name of many theatres, especially in the United Kingdom. The name was once an indication that the theatre was a patent theatre, with a Royal Patent without which performances of serious drama would be illegal.
The Theatre Royal, in Plymouth, Devon, England is "the largest and best attended regional producing theatre in the UK and the leading promoter of theatre in the south west", according to Arts Council England. It consists of a large main auditorium that can produce West End musicals, opera and ballet; a smaller experimental theatre called The Drum; and, on a separate site, a production and learning centre known as TR2. In 2012/13 the theatre received £1,178,579 in funding awards from Arts Council England. A £7 million Regeneration Project was completed in September 2013 with a renovated front of house area and community performance space called the Lab.
In 1758 a theatre was built at the top of George Street in Plymouth. Originally known as the Theatre, Frankfort-Gate, it adopted the name Theatre Royal after King George III and his family visited it in 1789.
In 1810 Plymouth Corporation held a competition for the design of a new theatre, hotel and assembly rooms at the bottom of George Street. The competition was won by John Foulston, who built a neo-classical block of buildings between 1811 and 1813. The new Theatre Royal opened in 1813 and could seat 1,192. Foulston's buildings formed a frontage of 268 feet (82 m) facing George's Place that was dominated by a portico with 30-foot (9.1 m)-high ionic columns. The theatre was on the west side of this portico, with the hotel and assembly rooms on the east. Foulston used thick walls to separate the auditorium from the foyer, corridors and the hotel next door to minimise the risk of fire damage. The whole inner structure was built of cast iron for the same purpose, and Foulston believed it was the only fireproof theatre in the country. Despite these precautions, the theatre suffered a disastrous interior fire in June 1878; by January 1879 it had been repaired and reopened.
Four theatre buildings in Edinburgh have borne the name Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, though the final three were all rebuildings of the second. The first was the Theatre Royal, Shakespeare Square, at the east end of Princes Street. This was opened 9 December 1769 by actor manager David Ross, and was at its peak from 1815 to 1850, being rebuilt in 1830.
It was demolished in 1859 and the royal patent and title transferred to the Queen's Theatre and Operetta House on an earlier Circus (previously the Adelphi Theatre). The manager of the theatre was Robert Henry Wyndham. It burned down and was rebuilt in 1865, 1875, and 1884, each time retaining the patent and the same site.