On Thursday this week, 16 February, the will be a chance to hear about the whole history of the modern thrust stage from someone who was there at the beginning in a talk titled The Guthrie Thrust State 1948-2001: A Living Legacy. It is part of the Society for Theatre Research lecture programme and takes place at 7:30PM at the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square London WC1N 3AT and is free and open to allcomers.
Iain Mackintosh is probably best known as one of the founders of the Prospect Theatre Company, which he ran for some years, and as an important contributor to theatre design, especially the Cottesloe, Tricycle and Glyndbourne theatres, and he was involved for a number of years with plans for a new theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Iain was present at Tyrone Guthrie's legendary production of Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites in the Assembly Hall Edinburgh in 1948, and he now seeks a fresh examination of the legacy of the ‘Guthrie Thrust Stage' created for that production. The lecture will concentrate on the pure Guthrie theatres in Britain, North America and Australia, and also review some of those which owe something but not enough to Guthrie's ideas.
It also forms an accompaniament to the ABTT's 40th anniversary exhibit on the subject, which comes to the V&A in the Spring after visiting the Sheffield Crucible and Stratford-upon-Avon, and which is supported by a 32 page publication with over 50 illustrations—to be distributed gratis after the lecture.
Also, (not gratis but very reasonably priced) glasses of champagne—donated to the Society by Iain—will be available after the lecture, to help defray some of the expenses of these meetings.
Details of other STR talks can be found on www.str.org.uk.