Alan Durband pounds by means of innovative seven-year tax-free covenants for the conversion of the building. It was a popular theatre specialising in local Liverpool settings & political subjects which gave opportunities to new playwrights – most famous of whom is probably Willy Russell (to whom Durband lent his Welsh cottage to write 'Educating Rita') and to actors such as: Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce & Julie Walters who joined the Theatre company around 1975. To mark this era, Willy Russell unveiled a plaque in memory of Alan Durband at the theatre in 1998 in the company of actor Pete Postlethwaite
International Theatre Vienna Gin Game, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker, The Removalists, The Collector, The Miracle Worker, On Golden Pond, Eden End, What the Butler Saw, Crimes of the Heart, The Foreigner, Baby with the Bathwater, Beyond Therapy, Parallel Lives, Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, Charley's Aunt, Harvey, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, Moon Over Buffalo, Lend Me a Tenor, Play it Again Sam, The Mousetrap, Dial "M" for Murder, Deathtrap, Wait Until Dark, Rebecca, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Dracula, Night, Mother, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Pygmalion, Arms and the Man, Into the Woods, Quilters, 'Art',