This article is about a street in London called Drury Lane. For the fictional detective created by Ellery Queen writing as Barnaby Ross, see Drury Lane (fictional detective).
The present-day Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, sketched when it was new, in 1813.
Drury Lane is a London street, originally named after the Drury family, owners of a large house there during the Tudor period.
The name of the street is often used to refer to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, which has in different incarnations been located in Drury Lane since the 17th century. A cockpit in that location was converted into a theatre during the reign of James I. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a splendid new theatre was built to designs by Christopher Wren. Having been razed by fire in 1672, it was succeeded by a larger and still more elaborate building also designed by Wren, which housed two thousand spectators and remained in use until the early 19th century. The great English actor David Garrick managed the theatre during the mid-eighteenth century, during which time he produced many plays, including most of Shakespeare's work.
The present Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, designed by Benjamin Wyatt, dates from 1812. The interior has been substantially redesigned and overhauled many times since then: a contemporary sketch of it when it was new is shown on the right, seen from the point of view of the beau monde in the lower gallery. It is one of the West End's largest, seating an audience of well over two thousand, and has been the setting for appearances by Edmund Kean and Sarah Siddons, among others. It is now used for major productions such as Miss Saigon and My Fair Lady.
The street Drury Lane is also where the muffin man lives as mentioned in a popular children's song. A delightful rendition of the song was included in Shrek.
Although the theatre survived the Great Fire of London, which raged through the city in September 1666 (and probably hastened the end of the plague), it was to burn down six years later on 25 January 1672.
Management of the theatre after it reopened in 1813 fell to Samuel Arnold, overseen by an amateur board of directors and a subcommittee focusing on the theatre as a centre for national culture.
The theatre reopened with Noel Coward's Pacific 1860 in 1946.
The New Theatre in DruryLane was built at a cost of fifteen hundred pounds, the dimensions of which were one hundred and twelve feet by fifty-nine feet.
It is popularly supposed that as a child she sold oranges in the pit of DruryLane and made her way to the stage at the early age of fifteen.
DruryLaneTheatre was destroyed by fire in 1809, when Sheridan was at the House of Commons.
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