At last Reading has its own professional repertory theatre company.
The Stage

Reading’s resident professional theatre combines high-class productions with ground-breaking education and community engagement to help transform Reading and the surrounding area’s cultural landscape.

Reading Rep began when Artistic Director Paul Stacey took a £500 overdraft and invested it into a vision he had always believed in: to revitalise Reading’s cultural landscape by making and creating the highest quality theatre, with, by and for Reading. 

With community at the heart of the artistic vision of the company, Reading Rep created ENGAGE in 2015, our flagship community outreach programme providing access to the arts for Reading’s most vulnerable communities. We run a year-round programme of workshops, delivered in partnership with Reading Libraries, Reading Borough Council, the Cultural Education Partnership, the NHS and numerous others, that has reached 15,000 children, young people and adults in the last 18 months alone.

With critical acclaim and sell out success, Reading Rep was ready for a new and permanent home. In 2018, just six years after our first production, we began raising funds to convert a former Salvation Army Hall into a 170 seat theatre and cultural hub. 

After raising £1million throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, the company is thrilled to be opening its new venue in 2021 with a bold new artistic season of work.