The New Theatre (Welsh: Theatr Newydd) is one of the principal theatres of Cardiff, capital city of Wales. It is located in the city centre on Park Place, close to Cathays Park.

Venue: New Theatre
Address: Park Place, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, CF10 3LN, Wales
Town: Cardiff, GB
Capacity: 1,144

The New Theatre (Welsh: Theatr Newydd) is one of the principal theatres of Cardiff, capital city of Wales. It is located in the city centre on Park Place, close to Cathays Park. The theatre has a capacity of 1,144, and hosts a number of touring productions including musicals, plays and children's shows and also presents an annual Christmas pantomime. The building was designed by the London-based theatre architects Ernest Runtz and Ford and constructed from brick and Bath Stone. It opened to the general public on 10 December 1906. It was constructed under order by Robert Redford, who had rented the Theatre Royal for the previous nine years. At the time of the initial build, the stage was one of the largest in the country, measuring 76 feet (23 m) wide, by 54 feet (16 m) deep and 57 feet (17 m) between the stage itself and the pulley grid hanging above. The first public performance was a performance of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, conducted by the company of Herbert Beerbohm Tree. The company had been brought from His Majesty's Theatre, London, and repeated the performance at the New Theatre on 13 December, and again for a matinee on 15 December. Also performed during the first week were the plays Colonel Newcome, Trilby, The Man Who Was and a further Shakespeare performance of Hamlet. Early performances included the Charles Klein play The Lion and the Mouse by Walter Maxwell's company, and the return of Tree's company with performances of an adapted version of Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood as a warm up to their season in London. The theatre's first film was shown in 1917 called The Birth of a Nation, it was accompanied by a full orchestra. In the early years of the BBC's radio broadcasts in the late 1920s, performances and concerts were conducted live on air from the New Theatre. This included the third act of Faust by the Carl Rosa Opera Company on 17 October 1928. By 1931 the theatre had made plans for regular cinema performances. Structural