More About the Dorfman Theatre
The Dorfman opened as the Cottesloe Theatre in 1977, the last of the National Theatre's three auditoriums to open, with Ken Campbell's Illuminatus!. Nobody had planned a theatre there at all; it was carved out of a leftover part of the building, which accounts for the plain oblong shape. It was reconfigurable from day one, with the audience able to sit at either end or all the way round, so the flexibility people think of as modern is as old as the theatre.
It was named after Lord Cottesloe, who chaired the board that built the theatre.
What happened to the Cottesloe Theatre
It closed on 23 February 2013 for rebuilding and reopened in 2014 under a new name, which came with a £10m gift from Lloyd Dorfman, the founder and chairman of Travelex and a National Theatre board member. The gift was the cornerstone of the NT Future campaign, and the reopening production was Here Lies Love. While the work went on, the studio programme moved into a temporary red building on the river frontage called the Shed, later the Temporary Theatre, which held 225 people and gave its last performance in May 2016.
The 2014 rebuild is the one you can feel from a seat. Out went the old retractable seating unit; in came folding seats on motorised lifts, one under each Pit row, and the whole auditorium now resets in about half an hour. The seats got wider, the rows further apart and the side sightlines better, and the end-on layout gained about 70 seats with the steep rake set up, and about 130 with the shallow one. It also brought back the gentle rake, which had not been possible since the mid-1980s.
Then it closed again, from November 2024 to the middle of 2025, for rewiring and a new scenery lift, flying system and lighting control. That was infrastructure rather than seating, so it left the auditorium unchanged to sit in, and it reopened in 2025 in the hands of young people from ten youth groups, as part of that year's Connections Festival.
What plays here
New writing, chiefly, and work that suits being watched close up. Two of the productions most closely tied to this theatre started here, both under the old name.
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, UK premiere, January 1992. Declan Donnellan directed, and Perestroika followed in 1993. The starry 2017 revival was in the Lyttelton, not here.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, July 2012. Simon Stephens' adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel, directed by Marianne Elliott. Seven Olivier Awards in 2013, then the West End.
Pride played here from June to September 2026 and sold out the run. It has since moved along the river to the Bridge Theatre, by Tower Bridge, where it runs from November 2026.
The other theatres in the building
- Olivier Theatre, around 1,100 seats. The big one, with an open stage and a fan of seating wrapped round it
- Lyttelton Theatre, around 890 seats. The traditional one, with a proscenium arch, Stalls and a Circle
- National Theatre, the building itself: getting here, what to eat, and how its tickets work
About FAQs
Why is it called the Dorfman Theatre?
After Lloyd Dorfman, whose £10m gift towards the rebuilding of the theatre was the cornerstone of the National's NT Future campaign. The name changed when the theatre reopened in 2014, having been the Cottesloe since 1977.
What has been on at the Dorfman Theatre?
Under its old name, Illuminatus! opened it in 1977, the UK premiere of Angels in America came in 1992, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in 2012. Since 2014 it has stayed a home for new work, with Pride the most recent to sell out its run before transferring.
Is the Dorfman Theatre inside the National Theatre?
Yes. It's one of the three auditoriums under the National Theatre's roof on the South Bank, along with the Olivier and the Lyttelton, and it's the smallest of them. It has its own entrance, round the side of the building from the main doors.