Memphis lost professional theatre when Front Street Theatre folded in the late 1960s; a troupe of young actors pooling rent money brought it back. Playhouse on the Square at 66 South Cooper Street in Overton Square is the flagship of Circuit Playhouse, Inc., the resident professional company founded by Jackie Nichols, and its current 347-seat home opened in January 2010. The lineage starts on 20 November 1969, when the incorporated Circuit Playhouse opened a rock-musical production of The Fantasticks in a rented former ballet academy near Memphis State, running on a 17,000-dollar season budget and a reputation for socially pointed programming that included the anti-Vietnam play We Bombed in New Haven. Playhouse on the Square itself debuted on 12 November 1975 with Godspell at 2121 Madison Avenue, backed by 30,000 dollars from Overton Square investors - the first professional resident company Memphis had seen in seven years. Early casts included Larry Riley and Michael Jeter before their New York and Hollywood careers. In 1985 the operation bought and renovated the old Memphian movie theatre at 51 South Cooper, its home for the next 25 years. The 12.5-million-dollar purpose-built theatre that opened across the street in January 2010, designed by architect John Morris and modelled on Chicago's Steppenwolf, gave the company a 347-seat mainstage over two levels with boxes, a rehearsal hall, a rooftop terrace and an attached office wing that houses arts nonprofits including Indie Memphis, whose film festival uses the auditorium. The company runs year-round large-scale musicals and plays with a professional resident acting corps - unusual for a regional company of its size - alongside its sister stages, The Circuit Playhouse and TheatreWorks, and its long-running celebrity art auction fundraisers. The Cooper Street address places it at the centre of Overton Square's restored entertainment district, whose theatre cluster now trades on the audience the Playhouse spent five decades building.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 66 Cooper Street, Memphis, TN, United States, 38104

Website: https://playhouseonthesquare.org

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 347

Opening Date: 01/01/2010

Accessible