Schools & Colleges Tours

We are the North West’s largest and only full-time, text based producing theatre – commissioning, creating and developing original and ambition theatre in our unique in the-round space, throughout our building, across the city and beyond. This means the shows are made by our highly skilled teams and freelance creatives from scratch using a text. Therefore whether we’re presenting an adaptation of a classic or new writing, your students will get a glimpse and insight into the whole process of making theatre.

You will explore our wardrobe, wigs, hair and make-up departments, where you may see costumes or prosthetics being made for an upcoming show. You will hear incredible facts about the rich history of not only the theatre, which was opened in 1976, but also the life of the building before this. You may meet some interesting characters during the tour, including our mascot Boris the bear.

As well as being informative, this new tour has been designed to be interactive and accessible, including a range of activities and opportunities to get hands-on with some of the elements that bring our shows to the stage. This will result in your students coming away with their own stories to tell.

Learning Objectives

• Gain in-depth knowledge about the theatre including the history, roles and work we do
• Be informed about all the careers and roles there are in theatre
• Gain exclusive access to the theatre and backstage area, observing the day to day running of a working theatre
• Learn about all the sets, costumes, wigs we make in house as part of us being a producing house

We look forward to welcoming you into our beautiful building and to giving you behind the scenes access to our unique theatre.

Booking & Tour Information

You can only book a minimum of 15 students and a maximum of 30. ( 1 teacher goes free per 15 students)
The dates we offer the tours are limited so we can give you the best possible access.

Tour dates:

16 February, 22 March, 10 May, 18 July

To make sure we can squeeze as many tours as we can in a day we have 4 open slots. Once these slots are gone they are gone.

Tour Times:

10:00 – 11:00, 11:15 – 12:15, 13:00 – 14:00, 15:15 – 16:15

Please note that the tours will be on a first come first serve basis. We are expecting a high volume of interest for these days, so please be quick confirming. If your school or college has been successful your tickets and attendance will be confirmed on the website booking form.