Royal Exchange celebrates 50 years with a landmark programme of costume, craft and conversation

This September, The Royal Exchange Theatre celebrates its landmark 50th anniversary with a series of events marking the venue’s longstanding commitment to storytelling, championing new voices and fostering new talent, while looking back on its extraordinary origins and evolution into one of the UK’s most unique and radical theatre spaces.

Forming a central part of the anniversary programme, MYTHIC REINVENTION: AN EXHIBITION CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF COSTUME AND CRAFT launches on Wed 16 Sep and runs until Sun 15 Nov, bringing the theatre’s extraordinary costume archive to life through a free public exhibition curated by international award-winning designer Leslie Travers. Inspired by the unique architecture of the venue’s Victorian Great Hall, the exhibition honours fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance, featuring pieces from past productions and offering an exclusive insight into the inner workings of the theatre’s costume department. Audiences will be able to discover costumes worn by Dame Helen Mirren, Don Warrington, Andrew Garfield, Sir Tom Courtenay, Maxine Peake and Suranne Jones, alongside extraordinary objects from the archive.

Leading up to the exhibition launch, EXCHANGING STORIES brings a series of live industry conversations exploring everything that has made the Royal Exchange so distinctive over the past five decades, from its pioneering architecture and design to its enduring focus on groundbreaking new writing and its role in shaping the UK’s theatre ecosystem.

Across Sat 12 and Sun 13 Sep, audiences can hear multi-award-winning actor David Threlfall in conversation with acclaimed director Matthew Dunster ahead of King Lear, while playwrights Rory Mullarkey, Simon Stephens, Daisy Miles and Tolu Okanlawon discuss the Exchange’s remarkable legacy of championing new work and launching the careers of some of the world’s most influential playwrights. Victoria Turner of Levitt Bernstein, the original architects behind the venue, joins Artistic Director and Co-CEO Selina Cartmell to explore the process of transforming one of the world’s largest rooms into a home for theatre and the origins of its iconic module structure.

Meanwhile, award-winning set and costume designer Leslie Travers and Royal Exchange Head of Costume Tracy Dunk will offer a closer look at the making of MYTHIC REINVENTION, unpacking the stories behind the extraordinary costumes and objects from the theatre’s archive.

Rounding off the initial festivities, the theatre will hold a special gala night on Tue 15 Sep, the exact date of its 50th birthday, bringing together friends of the theatre and industry figures to toast five decades of the Royal Exchange and look ahead to its future.