Kiln Theatre

The Kiln Theatre (formerly the Tricycle Theatre) is a theatre located in Kilburn, in the London Borough of Brent, England. Since 1980, the theatre has presented a wide range of plays reflecting the cultural diversity of the area, as well as new writing, political work and verbatim reconstructions of public inquiries.

The theatre has produced original work by playwrights such as Lynn Nottage, Patrick Barlow, Richard Bean, David Edgar, Stephen Jeffreys, Abi Morgan, Simon Stephens, Roy Williams, Lolita Chakrabarti, Moira Buffini, Alexi Kaye Campbell, Florian Zeller, Ayad Akhtar and Zadie Smith.

The theatre was founded in 1980 by Ken Chubb and Shirley Barrie. The current artistic director is Amit Sharma, who succeeded Indhu Rubasingham, in December 2023, who in turn had succeeded Nicolas Kent in 2012.

The theatre's name was changed from the Tricycle to Kiln Theatre in April 2018.

The theatre opened on the Kilburn High Road in 1980 as the permanent home of the Wakefield Tricycle Company, a touring theatre company that was known for producing British premieres, new writing, children's shows and theatre for the community in London and south-east England. The Wakefield Tricycle Company had been started in 1972 by Ken Chubb and Shirley Barrie, performing initially in a room behind the Pindar of Wakefield pub in King's Cross. The name Wakefield Tricycle Company was adopted as a pun on the Wakefield Cycle of mystery plays, the pub's name and the fact that the initial company had three members.

The company commissioned new plays which it presented at arts centres around the country and then brought into small London theatres, such as The Bush and King's Head. The Wakefield Tricycle produced over 60 plays including works by Sam Shepard, John Antrobus, Olwen Wymark and co-founder Barrie.

After securing the support of Brent London Borough Council, the Greater London Council and Arts Council England, the company was given a lease and began converting the Foresters' Hall on the Kilburn High Road into the Tricycle Theatre ("Wakefield" being dropped from the company's name at this point), opting for this space due to the lack of local entertainment facilities for the residents of Kilburn at the time. The Foresters' Hall, which was built for the Ancient Order of Foresters, had previously been used for various purposes, including as a cinema and as a music and dance hall and as temporary offices for Brent Housing Department and Rent Tribunal.

The then 235-seat auditorium, designed by architect Tim Foster and theatre consultant Iain Mackintosh, was modelled on the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond, Yorkshire. It was built using free-standing system-scaffolding that supported padded benches rather than individual seats. The pre-existing proscenium arch was in front of a stage so shallow as to be almost useless, so a large apron was built to take the acting area out into "the courtyard", leaving the old stage as almost a backstage area, frequently unused in productions, but leaving the theatre with the oddity of a proscenium arch framing a small rear, inner acting area.