The Belgrade Theatre is a live performance venue in Coventry, England. It was the first civic theatre to be built in Britain after the Second World War and is now a Grade II listed building.
Coventry was the fastest growing city in Britain between the First and Second World Wars. Its cramped medieval streets were becoming dangerously congested and overcrowded, and in 1938 the City Council appointed Donald Gibson to become the first city architect. The newly created City Architect's Department had ambitious plans, and the devastation of the Coventry Blitz allowed it more freedom to design an entirely new city centre. In 1955 Gibson resigned; extensive work had already taken place in the city centre but a growing Coventry required further development. The person that took over from him, Arthur Ling, would be the designer of the Belgrade Theatre.
Some versions of the overall plan for the city centre included three new theatres and cinemas, but during the 1950s it became clear that this would not be viable. There were still two pre-war cinemas operating in the city centre, and audiences were falling. It was decided that a single new theatre would be built on the corner of Corporation Street and Upper Well Street.
The first steps of construction took place in 1952, when Coventry's twin city of Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), pledged a gift of beech timber to be used in the new theatre. It is after this city that the Belgrade is named. The Yugoslavian ambassador Ivo Vejvoda visited the construction site in 1957, during the same trip he also opened an exhibition of modern Yugoslavian art at the Herbert Gallery. In the same year, the Arts Council announced that they would give financial support to the City Council to equip the new theatre, which was going over budget.
The Belgrade was officially opened at 8 pm on 27 March 1958 by the Duchess of Kent in a ceremony attended by many "civic personalities and representatives of the theatre world" including Sir Kenneth Clarke and Sam Wanamaker. Coventry's first female Lord Mayor, Pearl Hyde, gave an address of welcome and thanks to the Duchess from the Royal box before the first show began, Half in Earnest by Vivian Ellis.
Under Bryan Bailey, the theatre's first director, the Belgrade's resident company was established. This was the first Coventry-based theatre company since the Midland Theatre Company was disbanded by the Arts Council in 1957, producing the premieres of the "Wesker trilogy" (Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots and I'm Talking About Jerusalem) by Arnold Wesker. In the 1960s the Belgrade developed the innovative Theatre in Education concept, beginning with its project Pow Wow. This took a group of children and encouraged them to form a relationship with a cowboy. They were then introduced to an American Indian who was being kept in a cage as a prisoner, and given more information about the characters and their views. In the end the children had to decide whether to free the prisoner or not. This blend of theatre and education had never been seen before.
The theatre received a number of grants for maintenance and renovation through the 1980s and 1990s, before a major refurbishment was announced as part of Coventry's Millenium project. It was closed in 2006 for extensive building work including the addition of a new performance space, which took ten months longer than expected, at a total cost of around £11 million. The theatre eventually reopened on 22 September 2007 with a performance of Mr Puntila and His Man Matti. The new B2 studio performance area was opened by Prince Edward on 4 February 2008, the 50th anniversary year of the Belgrade's inaugural performance.
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