Minack Theatre

Minack Theatre

"Minack" in Cornish means a rocky place and the black headed crag below the theatre has always drawn local fishermen. Until the 1930’s they had the gorse filled gully to themselves and the cliffs echoed to the cries of gulls not actors.

Dorothea Valentine chose a tree lined meadow at nearby Crean as the rural backdrop for her production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The play went so well that it was repeated in 1930, though by that time it was a squeeze for many of the children to get back into their costumes. Thinking of what to do next, someone suggested "The Tempest".

The first performance of "The Tempest" in the summer of 1932 was lit by batteries, car headlights and the feeble power brought down from Minack House. And so Rowena Cade, that "frail looking woman", worked on each winter in all weathers until she was in her mid-eighties. When she died, just short of her ninetieth birthday, she was still thinking of the future. She left elaborate sketches suggesting how the Theatre might be covered on the days when it rains. As yet no one has had the temerity or the cash to implement those plans!

With the outbreak of World War II and with the threat of invasion the Minack Theatre fell silent. Actors and "props" were replaced by entanglements of barbed wire. Rowena Cade soon penetrated these defences. She regularly crawled under the wire to cut the grass. After the War she converted the gun post built to repel Hitler into the theatre's Box Office.


VISITORS INFORMATION:

Opening times:
Saturday - 9.30am to 5.00pm (closing 5.30pm)
Sunday - 9.30am to 5.00pm (closing 5.30pm)
Monday - 9.30am to 5.00pm (closing 5.30pm)
Tuesday - 9.30am to 5.00pm (closing 5.30pm)
Wednesday - 9.30am to 11.30am (closing NOON) - early closing due to afternoon show
Thursday - 9.30am to 5.00pm (closing 5.30pm)
Friday - 9.30am to 11.30am (closing NOON) - early closing due to afternoon show

Price: