About
Playhouse East.
Playhouse East opened in 2025 at 258 Kingsland Road, Haggerston. An independent venue for new writing, devised work and the long-form classes that grew the place in the first place.
The Haggerston building holds the 84-seat Playhouse stage and Studio Tardieu, our rehearsal-and-workshop studio. Down the road in Dalston, our original home, the Actors East blackbox theatre, gives us a 60-cap floor and a working bar. We programme new writing because that's where the next decade comes from. We charge what we charge because the rooms have to pay for the rooms. And we hold mornings pay-what-you-can because the people who built this place still need somewhere to work.
It's the sister-venue to Actors East, the long-running East London acting studio, but Playhouse East has its own front door, its own programme, and its own audience.
Four ways
into the building.
What's
On.
New theatre, festivals, late nights, work-in-progress and independent performance, most weeks of the year.
Hire a
Room.
Three working spaces with daylight, mirrors and sound. Affordable rehearsal, classes, workshops, shoots and events. Pay what you can mornings.
Develop
New Work.
Submissions, visiting companies, scratch nights and longer-form development. Open year-round.
Creative
Studios.
Year-round studios rented to playwrights, filmmakers, post-production teams, musicians, novelists and artists. Interested? Find current availability on Instagram.
Home of
Actors East.
Founded in 2018. World-renowned acting teacher Tom Radcliffe, himself a student of Sanford Meisner, led the training and grew the community. Today, Simon Furness runs the training, with drop-in classes throughout the week.
Jump to Actors East ↓Develop
new work.
Playhouse East was born out of an acting-studio mindset and group-theatre principles. We workshop, we share, we collaborate. We believe that putting work in front of an audience is part of the development process.
This building might not always be where work finishes, but it's a place where great work starts. Work that started with us has gone on to international stages and screens.
There are a few ways to bring work to us: apply to have work mounted here, attend our monthly Scene Night, use our affordable rehearsal rooms, or get involved in our community.
01 · Show up
Scene
Night.
New work from actors, writers and directors, shared with a supportive audience for live feedback. Hosted monthly by our Artistic Director, James Alexandrou. All welcome, from first-timers to seasoned pros.
Sign up to perform ↗02 · Make work
Rehearse
here.
Three affordable rehearsal rooms across our two venues. See the Hire section below for spaces, rates and availability.
Hire a room ↓03 · Train
Train.
Through our sister company Actors East, established in 2018, we train actors, writers and directors. You can sit in on a class to see how it actually runs. Better: come and take part.
Browse at Actors East ↗04 · Send it
Submit
your work.
Submit your work. Click below to apply. We aim to reply within 14 days.
Submit ↗What's
on.
★ Featured this season
WIP
Festival.
Four nights of work-in-progress from independent makers. Five new pieces a night, twenty minutes each. Audience feedback after every show. Open submissions just closed; full line-up announced 18 Jan.
Sister studio
Actors East.
Actors
East.
Actors East is the acting studio that built Playhouse East. Founded in 2018, the studio grew quickly after inviting world-renowned acting teacher Tom Radcliffe, himself a student of Sanford Meisner, to lead training. Today, Simon Furness runs the training, with drop-in classes throughout the week.
Hire a
room.
We run two venues with three working spaces, each a performance room, each available for hire, rehearsals or workshops. For anything beyond rehearsals or workshops, get in touch at contact@playhouseeast.com.
Haggerston · 84-seat theatre
The
Playhouse.
Our main stage. For performances, screenings, talks, launches and film shoots. Daylight by morning, full blackout by night.
Haggerston · Rehearsal & workshop
Studio
Tardieu.
Daylight studio with mirrors, sound and a full working day's worth of room. Built for rehearsal, classes, workshop work and small shoots.
Dalston · Full blackbox
AE
Theatre.
The Actors East blackbox in Dalston. 60-cap floor, full studio kit, working bar nearby. The original room where it all started.
What
You Can
20,000+ hours subsidised since 2018.
For unfunded artists and unfunded productions, built to cut against the rising cost of rehearsal rooms in London. No application, no proof of anything. Just show up and work.
Funded by the rest of the building
Click here to sign up ↗
Find
us.
07.A · Location
Location.
Box office opens 30 minutes before every show. Our resident bar & café, Hebe, is open most days; come visit. The building is at 258 Kingsland Road, roughly a 2-minute walk from Haggerston Overground.
07.B · Talk to us
Talk
to us.
Two doors in: one for tickets, one for hire and submissions. Everything else, just email us.
We do not offer refunds or cancel tickets, but we’re happy to discuss credit toward an upcoming show.
Email us →07.C · Open hours
What's open,
when.
Café Hebe is our front-of-house and runs through the week. Studio access runs 07:00–23:00 daily; please check current booking info on actorseast.com/hire. The bar opens on every show night, Monday included.