August 16th The Minack Thatre (First Performance)
     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this day in 1932, the extraordinary Minack Theatre presented its first public performance, ‘The Tempest’.
In 1929, a local amateur dramatic company had performed ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ on a grassy meadow about a mile inland from the Minack.

 Later when the players were looking for a suitable place to perform, Rowena Cade, who lived in Minack House, decided that the cliffs below her garden would be the perfect setting.  Over the winter of 1931 – 1932 Cade and her gardener, Billy Rawlings (pictured left) blew out part of the granite cliff and created a grass-covered stage and a series of terraces which became the Minack Theatre (pictured below).

                                                                             

 

The family of Spondon – born Rowena Cade (1893–1983) moved to Lamorna after the First World War and bought the Minack headland in the 1920s for £100 where they built Minack House.

Seven years before her death on March 26th, 1983, Cade created a charitable trust to own the theatre and her family are still heavily involved in the management of the theatre.



                                                                                                                                                       Previous                                 Next