George Mihalik, age 15, of Akron, Ohio, for his question:
HOW OLD IS THE FAMOUS OLD VIC THEATRE?
Old Vic is the name of a famous theater that is located in London. Called the Royal Coburg Theatre when it opened in 1818, it was for many years a popular site for the production of melodrama, the most widely performed theatrical fare of the 19th century.
In 1833 it was renamed the Royal Victoria Theatre.
In 1880 the building was bought by a British social reformer named Emma Cons for the presentation of lectures, concerts and other offerings for the moral and spiritual enlightenment of the neighborhood. It was then known as the Royal Victorian Music Hall, and later, popularly, as the Old Vic.
In 1898 Cons was joined in the management of the music hall by her niece, Lillian Mary Baylis. In 1914, under Baylis' management, the theater was organized as a nonprofit institution, devoted to the production in repertory of Shakespeare's plays and of opera performed in the English language.
By 1923 the Old Vic had produced all of Shakespeare's plays, the first theater in the world to accomplish this feat.
From 1946 to 1951 the Old Vic Theatre School, connected with the Old Vic Theatre, flourished under the French director Michel Saint Denis.
The Old Vic Theatre building itself, severely damaged by bombs during World War II, was rebuilt and reopened in 1950. The repertory company appeared from 1946 to 1963, performing in many countries of the world and including many leading actors of the British theater.
In 1943 the Old Vic sent a company to perform at the Theatre Royal in Bristol, England. In 1946 the Bristol Old Vic was established as a permanent repertory company.
The National Theatre of Great Britain took over the London Old Vic in 1963 and the Bristol group continued as a separate organization, subsidized by the arts council of Great Britain.
The Bristol Old Vic maintained a theater school and a repertory company.
In 1970 the National Theatre created the experimental Young Vic Theatre. Housed in its own London theater, the Young Vic soon became independent.
When the National Theatre moved into its own headquarters in 1976, the Old Vic Theatre was closed. It was refurbished and reopened late in 1983.
The British government started to give subsidies to the theater in 1945. The National Theatre, under the direction at that time of actor Sir Lawrence Olivier, was created in 1963 and soon became one of the world's outstanding companies.
The National Theatre includes many actors who worked with the Old Vic company from 1914 until it was disbanded in 1963.
Another subsidized theater, The Royal Shakespeare Company, was created from the organization that produced the Stratford on Avon Shakespeare Festival.