Celebrating the rich heritage of Half Moon Theatre

From its inception in 1972 Half Moon Theatre has played a key role in the development of the theatre sector, as well as in the involvement in the arts of the broader East End community, and still thrives today as the UK’s leading professional small-scale young people’s venue and touring company. Explore our online archive and discover the various Stages of Half Moon through photographs, programmes, news stories, documents, videos and filmed interviews with over 100 people.

A special thank you to the Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots programme who enabled us to work with young people to research the history of Half Moon.

Volpone (1987)
Mile End Road
Alec McCowen's Solo Performance of St Mark's Gospel (1990)
Mile End Road
The Girl and the Giraffe (2015-2017)
White Horse Road
Dust (2020 - 2021)
White Horse Road

Participation View all participation >

Photo by Patrick Baldwin (1)

Youth Theatre

Since the first Half Moon show created and performed by young people in 1975, Youth Theatre has been central to the ethos of creating opportunities for local young people to make their own theatre in a professional environment.

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Lyrical Laps - Project photos at Marion Richardson Installation Visit

Projects

Throughout its history, Half Moon has developed a strong reputation for working with young people in local schools and community settings to offer creative approaches to learning and a chance to tackle difficult subjects sensitively through drama.

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Rip, Fold, Scrunch production photo (3)

Artist Development

Half Moon has always invested in the development of artists, from technical training courses to participatory facilitation programmes and artform development that pushes boundaries in performance created for young audiences.

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Places

Explore the history of the three Half Moon Theatres on Alie Street, Mile End Road and White Horse Road through photographs, filmed interviews, documents, news stories and plans.

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Half Moon Theatre, Mile End Road. Photo by Conrad Blakemore.

Stages of Half Moon Festival

We celebrated the launch of Stages of Half Moon with a festival of events, including performances from our four oldest Youth Theatre groups and an exhibition of posters and photograph. Take a look at this short video to find out more.

Thank you

We couldn't have done this project without the help and support of a whole range of people. Thank you to everyone who contributed in some way.

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As Is promo contact sheet with David Fielder and George Costigan

Explore our timeline

Take a look at the Half Moon timeline and discover the history of Half Moon Theatre alongside key productions, participatory projects and contextual events.

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