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22-618: Terence James Stannus Gray (14 September 1895 – 5 January 1986), was a theatre producer who created the Cambridge Festival Theatre as an experimental theatre in Cambridge . He produced over 100 plays there between 1926 and 1933. Later in life, under the pen name Wei Wu Wei , he published several books on Taoist philosophy. Terence James Stannus Gray was born in Felixstowe , Suffolk, England on 14 September 1895,

44-551: A friendly path that Lord Chedworth was recorded as having left legacies of between £13,000 and £14,000 to members of the company. Norwich owed its place among the top five provincial circuits in England to its dramatic tradition. The White Swan Inn , near St. Peter Mancroft Church, Norwich , was the company's permanent home from 1731 to 1757 and soon became known as the White Swan Playhouse. The first reference to

66-672: A new theatre nearby to replace the 1807 building. The building is on the south side of the Newmarket Road in the northeastern Cambridge suburb of Barnwell. Completed in 1816, the theatre was sited outside the boundary of the town owing to prohibition of theatrical entertainment by the University authorities (a 1737 act "for the More Effectual Preventing the Unlawful Playing of Interludes within

88-663: A result, three theatres were built in Barnwell in succession, but Cambridge lacked a permanent theatre. William Wilkins (1751–1815), a building contractor, was proprietor of a chain of theatres in East Anglia known as the Norwich Theatre Circuit . Wilkins and his son, also William (1778–1839), built a theatre in 1807 at Sun Street, Barnwell . The younger Wilkins, responsible for Downing College and London's National Gallery during his career, designed

110-529: The Cambridge Festival Theatre from 1926 until 1935. The building, in which part of the interior of the theatre survives, is Grade II* listed. In the mid-18th century, Cambridge's main source of theatrical performances came from travelling companies, including the Norwich Company of Comedians , that would perform on Stourbridge Common at the Stourbridge Fair for three weeks each autumn. As

132-487: The proscenium . Norwich Company of Comedians The Norwich Company of Comedians was an acting company based in Norwich , East Anglia , during the 18th and 19th centuries. They used to perform on what was known as the Norwich Theatre Circuit , which consisted of an annual tour of six theatres. They were a professional, respected and comfortably-off band with better than average wages and popular headquarters at

154-476: The 1920s and 1930s, Gray worked as a theorist, theatrical producer, creator of radical "dance-dramas", publisher of several related magazines and author of two related books. His cousin was Ninette de Valois , founder of the Royal Ballet . In 1926, Gray, with no previous practical theatrical experience, opened the Cambridge Festival Theatre as an experimental playhouse. He acquired the old Theatre Royal in

176-520: The British mathematician and author G. Spencer-Brown , Galen Sharp , and Ramesh Balsekar . Wei Wu Wei is discussed in some detail in the book Taoism for Dummies (John Wiley and Sons Canada, 2013). A biography was published in 2004. Cambridge Festival Theatre The Theatre Royal was built in the Barnwell suburb of Cambridge , England, in 1816. It closed later that century but reopened as

198-592: The Cambridge suburb of Barnwell , and substantially rebuilt it. The opening production was Aeschylus' The Orestia , with de Valois as choreographer, and he continued to produce non-naturalistic productions, emphasising movement over speech. Doria Paston worked as an actress and set designer with Gray for seven years. Critics were divided, with some praising his achievements, and others saying he sacrificed text and acting to clever trickery. Gray delighted in upsetting audiences but, despite controversy, audiences filled

220-546: The Norwich circuit declined, despite hosting readings by Charles Dickens . The theatre closed in 1878 and became a nonconformist chapel. Terence Gray (1895–1986) leased the building in 1926 and reopened it as the Cambridge Festival Theatre. The alleyway between the street and the building was enclosed to form a foyer. The interior was modernised, with the proscenium arch widened by the removal of

242-537: The Precincts of the Two Universities ..." forbade the performance of all plays and operas within five miles of the town). On his father's death in 1815, Wilkins inherited the leases of the new site and six other theatres – Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Colchester, Yarmouth, Ipswich and King's Lynn – and continued to run them. Proprietorship passed to his son, W Bushby Wilkins, and a succession of lessees, but

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264-555: The White Swan inn. The company was treated with deference in every town it visited. Unusually, a good relationship had matured between the Norwich Theatre manager and the local magistrates , who under normal circumstances had little time for players. At some towns, when the season was drawing to a close, the town clerk would even send a note of congratulation to the troupe; and by 1804, relations had progressed along such

286-575: The group of actors who were to form the main part of the Norwich circuit appears in 1726. For a decade, they went by the name of "The Duke of Grafton 's Servants", a patron of the company in the early eighteenth century. In 1736 they assumed the cumbersome title of "The Norwich Company of Comedians, Servants to His Grace, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain to His Majesty's Household". The Company were careful to perform plays soon after their London première, reinforcing their professionalism by presenting

308-579: The later part of his life he lived with his second wife, the Georgian princess Natalie Margaret Imeretinsky, in Monaco . He had previously been married to a Russian noblewoman, Rimsky-Korsakov. Gray maintained his family's racehorses in England and Ireland and in 1957 his horse Zarathustra won the Ascot Gold Cup , ridden by jockey Lester Piggott in the first of his eleven wins of that race. In

330-537: The most recent plays possible. For instance, King Charles I by William Harvard appeared in the same month in London and Norwich in 1737. John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , new to London in January 1728, was performed to Norwich audiences three months later, and taken soon after to Bury St Edmunds , Colchester and Ipswich. The era of prosperity began in 1758 when local architect Thomas Ivory became proprietor of

352-473: The private boxes, and the introduction of electric lighting, a brick cyclorama and an early example of a revolving stage . The theatre was the country's "first permanent indoor performing space to be based on the design of a Greek open-air theatre". The 'Festival' name reflected Grey's intention (unfulfilled) to promote summer festivals. The opening production on 22 November 1926 was Oresteia , with choreography by Ninette de Valois . Gray retired from

374-579: The pseudonym "Wei Wu Wei" ( Wu wei , a Taoist term which translates as "action that is non-action"). His identity as the author was not revealed at the time of publication for reasons he outlined in the Preface to the first book, Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958). The next 16 years saw the appearance of seven subsequent books, including his final work under the further pseudonym "O.O.O." in 1974. Wei Wu Wei influenced among others,

396-552: The son of Harold Stannus Gray and a member of a well-established Anglo-Irish family. He was raised on an estate in the Gog Magog Hills outside Cambridge , England. He received a education at Ascham St Vincent's School , Eastbourne , Eton and Oxford University . Early in life he pursued an interest in Egyptology which culminated in the publication of two books on ancient Egyptian history and culture in 1923. In

418-509: The theatre became known for avant-garde productions, and the staging of lesser known works by major playwrights. Macleod staged some of Ezra Pound 's Noh plays, and also some Ibsen and Chekhov (his company, The Cambridge Festival Players, was one of the first in the UK to stage Chekhov's play The Seagull ). The theatre was obliged to close due to financial difficulties in June 1935. The building

440-432: The theatre in 1933 and wrote on Taoism under the pseudonym "Wei Wu Wei". Norman Marshall worked at the theatre from 1926 and was its director from 1932 to 1933. From 1927, Joseph Macleod was an actor and producer at the theatre, and in 1933 he became the theatre's director and lessee. Five of Macleod's plays were staged there, including Overture to Cambridge (1933) and A Woman Turned to Stone (1934). Under Macleod,

462-521: The theatre. Many of Gray's collaborators left the project over his inability to compromise. By 1933, he had abandoned theatre for good. After he left his theatrical career, his thoughts turned towards philosophy and metaphysics. This led to a period of travel throughout Asia, including time spent at Ramana Maharshi 's ashram in Tiruvannamalai , India. Between the years 1958 and 1974, eight books and articles in various periodicals appeared under

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484-533: Was recorded as Grade II* listed in 1950. From 1962, it was used by the Arts Theatre as a workshop and store. The building is in use as a Buddhist centre. Historic England describe the interior as "a virtually complete example of a Georgian theatre with a three-tiered horseshoe auditorium with the galleries supported on cast iron columns." and state that a painting of the Royal Arms remains above

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