Rose Theatre Kingston: Our Town
26 Feb – 26 Mar
In a co-production between the Rose Theatre Kingston and Welsh National Theatre, Michael Sheen stars in Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece, Our Town. Grover’s Corners is a small, unassuming town, home to people who lead simple, familiar lives. They work, share jokes, sing together, fall in love, raise families, and grow old side by side. Yet woven through these everyday moments are truths that speak to all of us – and an urgent reminder to treasure the present, while it’s still ours to hold.
Sheen shows this simple story through a Welsh lens, bringing this American 1930s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic to life for modern audiences. Only a few tickets left.
The Rose Theatre Kingston is a contemporary producing theatre that opened in January 2008 and has since become a central part of Kingston upon Thames’ cultural life. Its origins lie in a long-held ambition to bring a major professional theatre to the town, championed most notably by Sir Peter Hall — founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre — who served as the Rose’s first artistic director. Hall envisioned a theatre inspired by the spirit of the Elizabethan Rose Theatre on Bankside, where Shakespeare and his contemporaries first staged their plays.
Architecturally, the building reflects this influence through its thrust stage and close-wrapped auditorium, designed to create an intimate relationship between actors and audience while meeting modern performance standards. The Rose opened with Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, directed by Hall himself, setting a clear artistic tone rooted in classical drama and strong storytelling.
Unusually, the theatre was developed without regular Arts Council England funding. Instead, it was made possible through a combination of local authority backing, Kingston University support, private donors and community fundraising — a model that underscored its local significance from the outset. Over time, the Rose has established a varied programme of classic revivals, new writing, family productions and community projects, firmly embedding itself at the heart of Kingston’s civic and cultural identity.
Rose Theatre, Kingston. Tickets from £16.50 – £86.50. rosetheatre.org
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