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Person Code
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NA8666
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Corporate Name
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Gateway Theatre
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Dates
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1946-1970
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Activity
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The Gateway Theatre at 41 Elm Row, Edinburgh, occupied the site of an old veterinary college which was reconstructed as Pringle's Picture Palace in around 1910. The cinema closed in the 1930s and was then used as a theatre by a group of amateur actors. The premises were gifted to the Home Board of the Church of Scotland in 1944 by Mr Anderson, an Edinburgh tradesman, for use as a recreational and social centre.
The centre, with the Revd George Candlish as warden, housed an auditorium, which could serve either as cinema or theatre. It also offered accommodation for non-theatrical use: a toddlers' group and a youth club were amongst the bodies to avail themselves of the Gateway's facilities at this time. Sadie Aitken transferred from her post in Social Services to the Home Board to act as theatre manager, becoming the first woman to hold a theatre licence in Scotland and the second to hold a cinema licence. The theatre concentrated on showing quality films, had a professional company in residence for part of the year and also developed its own repertory theatre, the Edinburgh Gateway Company, which hired the theatre for about 30 weeks of the year. The centre continued to develop its other areas of work, such as with Boys' Clubs; the development of audio visual publicity material, and the making films for the church. The Gateway was officially opened as a theatre by Joseph Westwood, Secretary of State for Scotland, in 1946 and twenty-seven plays were presented in the first three seasons alone. In addition to theatre productions the centre also hosted other local organisations like the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Marjorie Middleton's Ballet School, Ballet Rambert, and the Makars. In 1950 the Kirk Drama Federation was formed and used the Gateway for their Festivals. There was a coffee bar in the theatre and an ingenious buzzer system linking it to the Windsor Buffet bar next door which warned patrons of the start of the performances.
By 1953 the Church had decided to hand the building over to a fully professional, independent company. A subscription list for a repertory theatre in Edinburgh was organised by Robert Kemp (1908-1967), in association with Revd George Candlish and the actors Lennox Milne and Tom Fleming (b. 1927). The Gateway company was formed with Robert Kemp in charge and during the 1950s included many of Scotland's finest actors and actresses and was the focus of a school of Scottish dramatists. The Gateway became a professional repertory theatre and was, granted funding by the Scottish Arts Council.. The Edinburgh Gateway Company Ltd, a private limited company, was formed in 1953 and the theatre opened in October of that year. The company?s purpose was ?to promote, maintain, improve, and advance education, particularly by the production of educational plays and the encouragement of the Arts, including the arts of drama, mime, dance, singing and music?. They produced many new Scottish plays, a good proportion of which was provided by Robert Kemp. They also revived Scots plays and premiered a new Scottish play at each year?s Edinburgh International Festival. A Gateway Membership scheme was introduced which was very popular for many years and encouraged voluntary help with the work of the theatre. In 1965 the company was absorbed into Edinburgh's new Civic Theatre Company at the Royal Lyceum and The Gateway Theatre closed in the same year. The company's production of Ada Kay's 'The Man from Thermopylae' at that year's Edinburgh Festival proved to be its swan song. The Edinburgh Gateway Co. Ltd was voluntarily wound up: a liquidator was appointed in 1968, and the Company was dissolved in 1970.
The premises on Elm Row were subsequently occupied by Scottish Television, which used the building as its Edinburgh studio. In the 1990s it was taken over by Queen Margaret University College, and after refurbishment it reopened in 1999 as the home of the College's School of Drama and Creative Industries and of Scotland's International Drama Centre. The Gateway continues to stage performances by Queen Margaret's students and visiting companies, and is intensively used as a theatrical venue during the Edinburgh International Festival - in particular by companies putting on productions as part of the Festival Fringe.
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NonPreferredTerm
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Edinburgh Gateway Company Ltd
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Notes
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Bill Findlay (ed.), 'A History of Scottish Theatre' (Edinburgh, 1998); http://arts.qmuc.ac.uk/ijost/Volume1_no2/K_Gilmour.htm
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Subordinate
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Edinburgh
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Associated records
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| GB233/Acc.4605 | Gateway Theatre | 1946-1967 | | GB233/Acc.5086 | Plays performed at the Gateway Theatre | [20th century] | | GB233/Acc.7014 | Gateway Theatre, Edinburgh, playscripts | 1954-1959 | | GB233/Acc.12942 | Papers of Marillyn Gray (1930-2006) Scottish stage actor, chiefly relating to the Gateway Theatre, Edinburgh, including papers of Sadie Aitken (1905-1985) Gateway Theatre general manager | 1925-1997 | | GB247/STA Cy-Cz, Af 4 | Gateway Theatre | 1953-1968 |
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