Foundation of The Theatre
The campaign to open the building as a theatre was led by the Lebanese-born internationally renowned opera and theatre director Pierre Audi, after he had acquired the derelict building in 1972. A public appeal was launched and in 1980, with the building renovated, the theatre opened with a festival of avant-garde theatre and music, held both there and at other Islington venues, with Audi as the Artistic Director.
Under Audi the theatre's reputation grew and its annual summer International Festival of Contemporary Music and Performance (now known as Almeida Opera) became highly regarded. In the summer of 1985 Ástor Piazzolla, the renowned Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player, made a week long appearance with his Quinteto Tango Nuevo. Peter Greenaway's 1983 series of films for Channel 4 Four American Composers featured Almeida presentations of works by Robert Ashley, John Cage, and Philip Glass and a Dance Umbrella presentation of Turtle Dreams by Meredith Monk.
Throughout the 1980s the Almeida Theatre was a London 'receiving house' for Fringe, avant-garde and provincial theatre productions. Touring companies from the UK were regularly hosted, including Shared Experience, Joint Stock, Theatre Complicite, Cheek by Jowl and the Leicester Haymarket. The Almeida also presented numerous contemporary music and performance events and productions from Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Japan, Argentina, Israel, Morocco, the Philippines, and Tibet, and also housed a producing company which commissioned and staged several theater works and operas (see list below). Among the dozens of stage directors, composers, and ensembles featured were Yuri Lyubimov, Robert Wilson, Robert Lepage, Phelim McDermott, Julia Bardsley, Deborah Warner, Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, Yvar Mikhashoff, Michael Finnissy, Wolfgang Rihm, Claude Vivier, Gerald Barry, Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, Conlon Nancarrow, Virgil Thomson, Arvo Pärt, Somei Satoh, Akio Suzuki, Takehisa Kosugi, Toru Takemitsu, Jo Kondo, Sylvano Bussotti, Giacinto Scelsi, Alfred Schnittke, Luis de Pablo, Capricorn, Spectrum, Music Projects/London, Singcircle, the Arditti Quartet, and the London Sinfonietta.
Peter Brook's Bouffes du Nord company played there in 1982, and Ronald Harwood's documentary drama, The Deliberate Death of a Polish Priest premiered at the Almeida in October 1985, an early example of a transcript of a trial of the political murderers of Father Jerzy Popieluszko. In 1987, the Almeida also became home to Motley Theatre Design Course, under the directorship of Margaret Harris.
The Not the RSC Festival was presented at the Almeida in 1986 and 1987.
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