Orange Tree Theatre Orange Tree Theatre The Orange Tree Theatre is a 180-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south-west London, which was built specifically as a theatre in the round. It is housed within a disused 1867 primary school, built in Victorian Gothic style. The theatre was founded in 1971 by its previous artistic director, Sam Walters, and his actress wife Auriol Smith in a small room above the Orange Tree pub opposite the present building, which opened in 1991. Paul Miller, previously associate director at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, is the artistic director. He succeeded Walters, the UK's longest-serving
John Street Theatre business. It was demolished in late 1798. The Downtown New York branch of Brasserie Les Halles now occupies part of the site. John Street Theatre John Street Theatre, situated at 15-21 John Street, sometimes called "The Birthplace of American Theatre," was the first permanent theatre in New York. It opened on December 7, 1767, and was operated for several decades by the American Company. It closed on January 13, 1798. The theatre was built by David Douglass (c. 1720-1786), an English actor who had emigrated to Jamaica in about 1750. There he met Lewis Hallam, leader of a touring theatrical