The Royal Exchange Theatre Company, founded in 1968, is the longest-serving group theatre in the country, providing a unique, artistic continuity. In 1976 the Company moved into its permanent home, where a purpose built, 750-seat theatre in-the-round was constructed within the former Cotton Exchange Hall.

In 1996, the theatre found itself at the centre of an IRA bomb blast, which devastated Manchester. Two and a half years later the Company returned to its home at the Exchange having completed a major rebuild with the aid of a significant Lottery Award. The Theatre re-opened in November 1998 with a completely refurbished 750-seat auditorium and, for the first time in its history a brand new 90 seat Studio Theatre.

The Royal Exchange's aim is to present as rich a spectrum of work as possible, presenting the best in world theatre from the classical to the modern repertoire. The artistic vision of the company arises from the theatre space itself. The space is three-dimensional like our own lives. The plays look at as wide a variety of human experience as is possible. A theatre that excludes imaginative other worlds of culture, sexuality and identity is a dead theatre.

New writing forms a central position in the programme and The Studio strengthens these principles by widening our artistic possibilities and providing the imaginative roots for the future. Writers such as Simon Stephens, Owen McCafferty, Debbie Horsfield, Chloe Moss and Matthew Dunster have been nurtured and developed with the best resources available, forming a key part of the Royal Exchange's main repertoire.

www.royalexchange.org.uk