The Gate exists to platform international voices and political, innovative stories through theatre
Image caption: EFFIGIES OF WICKEDNESS, 2018. Image ©Helen Murra
About Us
The home of international storytelling
The Gate brings people together from across the world to engage with theatre, performance, art and ideas. Founded in 1979 to stage ground-breaking, international plays, the Gate has become a platform for some of the most radical artists, writers, directors and designers from across the globe; known for its transformative ability to push the boundaries of what theatre is and can be. It is where creatives have come together to imagine storytelling differently and where experimental thinking is placed front and centre.
The Gate is a true Cinderella story. With little money and an awkward space, it has shown how a small theatre, led with courage, imagination and a strong sense of what it is, can grow into one of the most important and internationally influential theatrical powerhouses.
Lou Stein, Founding Artistic Director
Telling stories from beyond our borders
At a time when the world and our own nation grow increasingly insular, the Gate’s mission has become more important than ever: we believe it is vital to foster communication and understanding across borders, across languages, across cultures. The Gate works with artists in the UK to tell stories from beyond our borders, celebrating the multiplicity of identity in each of our individual artists, and across our audiences, through the power of theatre.
New voices and ideas
As a home for new voices and new ideas for over 40 years, we also have a reputation as a training theatre. Shows with the Gate enable artists to take risks and to develop and advance their own talents, and their own professional journeys, by making high quality work that moves the artform and the sector forward. Following the debilitating effects of both pandemic and government cuts to the arts industries and arts education, this enterprise continues to be essential.
We believe that you cannot make a better world if you cannot first imagine it: at the Gate, we use theatre and storytelling as a means to rehearse the future; to imagine how the world could be; and to help us decide what it is we value in life. By prioritising international voices and investing in their development, the Gate plays a role in changing the broader theatrical landscape, nurturing talent who can then go on to work with larger companies and venues, and engaging with audiences from communities that may not otherwise see themselves represented, let alone celebrated, on the stage. In London, the world is at our doorstep, and through our productions, we offer our audiences the opportunities to look outward to that world.
Our Story
From the beginnings of an idea shown in a tiny advert in Time Out to now over forty years of groundbreaking theatre made by some of the industry’s most daring artists, take a look through some of the highlights from our rich history.
