Byre Theatre

Byre Theatre, St Andrews - 'The Best Small Theatre in Scotland'

Byre Theatre owned by Fife Council, closed in January 2013, to reopen in October 2014 after the University of St Andrews agree a rescue package.

The University of St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university has signed a 25 year lease on the Byre and will operate it as a theatre, educational resource, general arts venue and music centre.

 The original Byre Theate in St Andrews was founded in 1933, with its own homespun charms, having grown from its humble beginnings in a cattle shed. The new Byre Theatre was completed in 2002 with funding from the National Lottery. The task set before the architects was to create "The Best Small Theatre in Scotland" within a historically sensitive context of St Andrews.

The new Byre Theatre seats a maximum of 220 retaining an intimacy for which the Byre is famous.

The Byre Theatre also has conference facilities, a fully flexible studio theatre, and restaurant.

The architects Nicoll Russell Studios describes the Byre Theate in St Andrews thus; "The Theatre grows from the existing town's fabric and housesan oval concrete auditorium under a 'barn' roof, with the public functions situated in a glazed vennel linking Abbey Street and a captured garden to the west, on one side of the auditorium, and all the support accommodation located on the other side. The sensitivity of the massing of the building is continued in its appropriate use

 

of natural materials and robust detailing to physically ground it on the site and with its history."

The Byre Theatre is an important cultural asset for both St Andrews and Fife, we look forward to it once again delivering a high-quality programme of community and professional dance, music, film and theatre.