About us
THE YARD
A NEW WORLD EVERY NIGHT
The Yard makes the theatre nobody else does. Plays, cabaret, dance and drag. Debut writers at the scale of experienced ones. Big names doing the thing they've never been given room to do. The boldest version of every show. We started in 2011 when Artistic Director Jay Miller and fifty volunteers converted a Hackney Wick warehouse into a theatre with a six-month lease.
The lease ran out. The Yard didn't.
Productions first made here have won Oliviers, became BAFTA-winning television and they have toured the world. Audiences have been growing every year. Now we’re twice the size.
Six months became fifteen years. Fifteen years became this.
“It’s a mecca for some of the most interesting theatre in Britain.”
British Vogue
OUR BUILDING
BUILT TO LAST
The new Yard is designed from scratch for live performance. RIBA award-winning Takero Shimazaki Architects worked with us on every detail. A 220-seat curved auditorium. A six-storey high natural ventilation chimney. Reused brick from the original Yard. Low-carbon products throughout. A dedicated space for young artists.
More than twice the size of the first Yard, on the same Hackney Wick spot.
OUR ARTISTS
FOR ARTISTS WHO ARE READY
We back artists with their boldest ideas. Debut writers at proper scale. Big names finally building the thing they've always wanted to make. We commission. We develop (for years).
Ncuti Gatwa, Michaela Coel, Alex Zeldin, Dipo Baruwa Etti. Emma D’Arcy. Eva Morgan. Josh Azouz. Jaz Woodcock Stewart. Marikiscrycrycry. Vinay Patel. James Fritz.
All of these artists have made theatre on our concrete stage.
The next generation is in our rehearsal rooms now. Yard Young Artists include those in primary schools, as well as adults. The pipeline doesn’t just begin at drama school. East London talent shouldn't have to leave East London to find a stage.
No rules, except that what we make should be world class.
“The Yard has been instrumental in my success as an artist and with their immense support of my work, as commissioners, as producers, as my artist home in London. They really know what they are doing.”
Marikiscrycrycry
OUR PEOPLE
OUR TEAM
OUR BOARD OF TRUSTEES
OUR STORY
FIFTEEN YEARS IN
Founded in 2011 by Artistic Director Jay Miller, The Yard was built in a few weeks from reclaimed materials. Scavenged scaffold planks. Unwanted lino from the Olympic development. A disused Hackney Wick warehouse converted into an amphitheatre by Jay and fifty volunteers, on a £9,000 Arts Council grant.
"We've been operating in a tin can. When it's cold outside, it's cold inside. The new Yard is the same spirit, in a building that lets us deliver it." — Jay Miller
The new Yard is here to do it again, at twice the scale, warm when it’s cold outside.
This is step two.
The Yard being built in 2011, before anyone ever arrived.
Our original home.
