Manchester Theatres: Where to Go for a Treat Before or After the Show

Manchester Opera House is a large theatre on Quay Street in Manchester city centre. It opened on Boxing Day 1912 as the New Theatre and took the name Opera House in 1920. The Grade II listed building has a classical front with fluted Ionic columns. It served as a cinema during the Second World War and later spent time as a bingo hall, before reopening as a theatre in 1984.

Today the Opera House hosts a broad programme of musicals, plays, comedy, concerts, dance, pantomime and family shows. Past productions on its stage include Barnum and The Phantom of the Opera. It is run by ATG, which also operates the Palace Theatre on Oxford Street. Deansgate station and the Deansgate-Castlefield Metrolink stop are both nearby.

The Palace Theatre stands on Oxford Street in Manchester city centre, on the corner with Whitworth Street. It opened on Whit Monday 1891 as the Palace Theatre of Varieties, designed by the architect Alfred Darbyshire. Frank Matcham reworked the interior in the 1890s and Bertie Crewe did so again in 1913, and the building was Grade II listed in 1977. After major refurbishment in the late 1970s, it reopened in 1981 with Jesus Christ Superstar.

The Palace is a major regional touring venue, with a programme led by large-scale musicals alongside plays, comedy, dance and concerts. It is run by ATG alongside the Manchester Opera House on Quay Street. Oxford Road station is directly opposite the theatre, and St Peter's Square Metrolink stop is also close by.

The Royal Exchange Theatre sits inside the Royal Exchange building on St Ann's Square in Manchester city centre. The building was completed in 1874 for the city's cotton trade, with a Great Hall under a glass dome, and the last day of trading was 31 December 1968. The theatre company opened here on 15 September 1976 with Sheridan's The Rivals. After the 1996 IRA bomb devastated the city centre, the company worked from a temporary home for twenty months before returning to a refurbished building with a new Studio space.

The main stage is a seven-sided theatre module built from tubular steel, designed by Richard Negri and set inside the Great Hall. This in-the-round space seats up to 700, and no one in the audience is more than ten metres from the stage. The company makes its own productions and is a home for new writing and world premieres, working with both established and emerging writers, directors and designers.

HOME is an arts centre on Tony Wilson Place, in the First Street area just off Whitworth Street West in Manchester city centre. It opened in May 2015, formed by the merger of two Manchester arts organisations, Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company. The purpose-built venue was designed by the Dutch architects Mecanoo.

Its programme brings theatre and dance, independent film and contemporary art together under one roof. The building has two performance spaces, a main theatre and a flexible studio, along with five cinema screens and gallery space. Deansgate-Castlefield Metrolink stop and Oxford Road station are both close by.

Aviva Studios is a large arts venue on Water Street in the St John's area of Manchester city centre. It is the home of Factory International, the organisation behind Manchester International Festival, and stands on the former site of Granada Studios, where Coronation Street was filmed. The building was designed by Ellen van Loon of OMA as the practice's first major public building in the UK. It opened officially in October 2023.

Its flexible spaces host dance, theatre, music, visual arts and large-scale performance all year round, and it is the hub for Manchester International Festival, held every two years. The Warehouse is a 21m-high space that holds up to 5,000 people standing and can be divided by a movable acoustic wall. The Hall seats up to 1,600 or holds 2,000 standing, and the two spaces can be used together with the stage extending deeper into the building. The free bus 1 route links the venue with Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Deansgate stations.

Hope Mill Theatre is an independent theatre inside Hope Mill on Pollard Street in Ancoats, Manchester. The Grade II* listed mill was built in 1824 for the Clarke family as a cotton spinning and fustian weaving factory, and its rare cast and wrought iron roof is a major reason for its listing. Joseph Houston and William Whelton founded the theatre, which opened in November 2015.

It is a small producing venue, modelled by its founders on London's Off West End theatres. Its work spans musicals, new writing, classic texts and revivals, along with educational projects. Its training arm, Hope Mill Theatre Arts, offers a BA (Hons) in Musical Theatre Performance.