Annie Horniman - Theatre Manager

Theatre Manager

Annie's first venture into the theatre was in 1894 was made possible by a legacy from her grandfather. She anonymously supported her friend Florence Farr in a season of new plays at the Avenue Theatre, London. This included a new play by Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire, and the première of George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man. In 1903 Yeats persuaded her to go to Dublin to back productions by the Irish National Theatre Society. Here she discovered her skill as a theatre administrator. She bought a property and developed it into the Abbey Theatre, which opened in December 1904. Although she moved back to live in England she continued to support the theatre financially until 1910. Meanwhile in Manchester she had purchased and renovated the Gaiety Theatre in 1908 and developed it into the first regional repertory theatre in Britain.

At the Gaiety she appointed Ben Iden Payne as the director and employed actors on 40-week contracts, alternating their work between large and small parts. The plays produced included classics such as Euripides and Shakespeare, and she introduced works by contemporary playwrights such as Ibsen and Shaw. She also encouraged local writers who formed what was known as the Manchester School of dramatists, the leading members of which were Harold Brighouse, Stanley Houghton and Allan Monkhouse. The Gaiety company undertook tours of America and Canada in 1912 and 1913. Annie became a well-known public figure in Manchester, lecturing on subjects which included women's suffrage and her views about the theatre. In 1910 she was awarded the honorary degree of M. A. by Manchester University. During the First World War the Gaiety continued to stage plays but financial difficulties led to the disbandment of the permanent company in 1917, following which productions in the theatre were by visiting companies. In 1921 Annie sold the theatre to a cinema company.

As a result of her tea connection, she was known as "Hornibags". She held court at the Midland Hotel, wearing exotic clothing and openly smoking cigarettes, which was considered scandalous at the time. She introduced Manchester to what was called at the time "the play of ideas". The theatre critic James Agate noted that Horniman's high-minded theatrical ventures had "an air of gloomy strenuousness" about them.