The Theatre Royal in Dumfries, Scotland is the oldest working theatre in Scotland. The theatre is owned by the Guild of Players who bought it in 1959, thereby saving it from demolition.

Venue: Theatre Royal, Dumfries
Address: 66-68 Shakespeare Street, Dumfries, Dumfries & Galloway, DG1 2JH, Scotland
Town: Dumfries and Galloway, GB

The Theatre Royal in Dumfries, Scotland is the oldest working theatre in Scotland. The theatre is owned by the Guild of Players who bought it in 1959, thereby saving it from demolition. The Guild's aim is to promote the tradition of live theatre in Dumfries. It is the venue for the Guild of Players' own productions and for performances from visiting companies. In addition it is used extensively as a venue for the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival, the Dumfries Music Festival and the Dumfries Musical Theatre Company. In 1790, actor manager George Stephen Sutherland approached interested people in Dumfries and the surrounding area with the intention of raising subscriptions for a purpose-built theatre, to take the place of the Old Assembly Room in the George Hotel.. Among those involved was Robert Burns, then resident at Ellisland Farm, a few miles to the north of Dumfries. Robert Burns, writing from Ellisland to his friend William Nicol, on 2 February 1790, said: 'Our theatrical company, of which you must have heard, leave us this week. Their merit and character are indeed very great, both on stage and in private life, not a worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty pounds a night; seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than the other. There have been instances of sending away six and eight and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first to come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers, and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with.' Sutherland was also a lessee of the Tontine Assembly Rooms, Paisley and had tried to build a theatre in Ayr. Completed at a cost of £800, what was then known simply as The Theatre or the New Theatre, opened on