National Theatre (Dorfman)

The Dorfman Theatre (formerly the Cottesloe Theatre) has been redeveloped, with a greater capacity, more comfortable seats, better sight-lines and enlarged foyer spaces. The most flexible of the National Theatre auditoriums, it is a rectangular room, which can hold up to 450 people. In the pit, the new flexible seating system can be raised and lowered in minutes to either a steep or shallow rake format; or the seats can be folded away completely to become a flat floor. On three sides of the room there are two levels, the circle and gallery, which look down on the pit. Performances can be staged in a conventional format at one end; in “traverse”, lengthways or across the space; or in the round. Everything is open to change except the circle and gallery, which are reminiscent of the inn-yards that preceded Shakespeare's stages as performance areas.