History: The Company

In 1965 the Edinburgh Corporation bought the Royal Lyceum Theatre building to house the newly-formed Royal Lyceum Theatre Company.

With the help of grants from the Arts Council and the City Corporation, the Company, under the Artistic Direction of Tom Fleming, opened on 1 October 1965 with a Scots version of the Goldini play Servant O' Twa Maisters.

The Lyceum’s artistic policy enables the Company to present plays from both the British and International repertoire of classics. There is also an extensive commitment to new writing and adaptations by Scots writers, including most recently:

Monks (2007) – by Des Dillon

Pinocchio (2006) – by Mark Thomson

Mary Stuart (2006) – a new version by David Harrower

Faust (2006) – by John Clifford

Anna Karenina (2005) – dramatised by John Clifford

The Girl With Red Hair (2005) – by Sharman Macdonald

A Madman Sings to the Moon (2004) – by Mark Thomson

Six Black Candles (2004) – by Des Dillon

The Company is committed to encouraging guest directors, designers and lighting designers with a view to generating fresh ideas and providing more scope for development.

Our artistic policy, along with support form the Scottish Arts Council and significant sponsors, has enabled us to tour around Scotland with main stage productions. In the past productions have toured to Inverness, Aberdeen, Stirling, Glasgow, Kirkcaldy and as far afield as Shetland and Orkney.

Since 1947 the Royal Lyceum Theatre has regularly been used as one of the principal stages of the Edinburgh International Festival. We hire out the theatre to the Edinburgh International Festival Society for three weeks in August as a main performance venue to host visiting companies during the International Festival. We also rent the building to conference and concert promoters throughout the year.

For more information on hiring the building, the auditorium, or individual function rooms, please click here