The Old Vic and Laurence Olivier as its stars, performing mainly at the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) until the Old Vic was ready to reopen in 1950. In 1946, an offshoot of the company was established in Bristol as the Bristol Old Vic. In 1963, the Old Vic company was dissolved and the new National Theatre Company, under the artistic direction of Lord Olivier, was based at the Old Vic until its own building was opened on the South Bank near Waterloo Bridge in 1976. In July 1974 the Old Vic presented a rock concert for the first time. National
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School the University's Bell Tower at the top of Bristol's fashionable Park Street. Students from the School and the Drama Department shared many of each other's formal lectures and a number of the Department's graduates went on to continue their studies as full-time students at the School. Having struggled with limited resources until the 1960s, the School now has access to a number of local performance venues, including the Redgrave Theatre at Clifton College (named after the actor Sir Michael Redgrave, an old boy of the College) the Bristol Old Vic theatre complex, including the Theatre Royal, New Vic Studio and