Theatre Underground
University of Essex
Theatre Underground
Tue 4 Nov 2025
5pm – 7pm
Upstairs Bar, Mercury Theatre
This event is free of charge and no booking is necessary.
Theatre Underground was a campus theatre founded by Roger Howard, a former lecturer, at the University of Essex in 1979. It staged a variety of political plays that transferred to bigger stages, like the Edinburgh Fringe and the Cockpit Theatre in London.
A few years later, Theatre Underground launched a Theatre Writer’s Residency with the Mercury Theatre in Colchester. This residency hosted well known playwrights and authors, like Michèle Roberts, Claire Luckham, Steve Gooch, and Lucinda Coxon. The plays, which had been discussed and redrafted with MA students of the University over the course of term, were then staged at the Mercury Theatre, introducing the local audience to new aesthetic principles, themes, and hitherto unseen work.
This launch event is part of a PhD research that focuses on the town and gown relationship between the University and the local community, exploring what lasting impact campus theatre might have had on the people in Colchester and academia.
Whether you were part of Theatre Underground, attended past performances, contributed as a playwright, or were a student involved in any way, your memories and experiences will be invaluable for this research. By capturing these histories, the importance of student-led theatre in shaping local culture will hopefully be highlighted – offering a legacy that honours not only to the University community but the wider public of Colchester as well.
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