Straddling the Hackney-Islington border is The Rosemary Branch Theatre. With a pub and dining area downstairs and a performance space above, the venue is one of North London’s most beloved cultural cornerstones.
What visitors may not realise is the theatre will this year mark 30 years of being run by an all-female leadership team. Ahead of International Women's Day, East End Review speaks to two of the women who have made the venue what it is today.
While the history of the pub - known to staff, regulars and locals as ‘the Rosie’ - can be traced back to 1594, the venue in its current form opened “as soon as the paint was dry” after its current owners purchased the building in 1993.
One of them was Cecilia Darker, who was working as a dance teacher and living in Clerkenwell when she first became involved with the pub.
“The area was very rundown and the Rosemary Branch pub was a squat”, she tells East End Review. “It was painted bright pink on the outside and lit by a single bulb on the inside when it was dark.
“The East End of London had barely been discovered by hipsters or yuppies. Everything was done on paper or by word of mouth”.
Darker was brought onto the project by Robert Thomas, an entrepreneur who had recently renovated two pubs in Hackney - the Prince George in Parkholme Road and the Shakespeare in Stoke Newington.
“He saw The Rosemary Branch as a great opportunity and persuaded us to blow all our savings on buying this wreck”, she adds.
“Three years later, the building was in better shape and the bar was open, mostly frequented by the artists and musicians who lived and worked in the area”.
While Darker’s husband managed the building work, she was put in charge of the “historic but dust-covered” upstairs theatre.
“The bar downstairs regarded the theatre with suspicion, but the locals quite enjoyed the regular influx of new faces and a lot of lasting friendships and romances began in the bar”, she continues.
“My close friend, Cleo Sylvestre, had recently lost her husband and was ready for a new project.
“I suggested that she and I joined forces along with another friend, journalist Angela Neustatter, and off we went.
“Cleo had lots of theatre contacts and many of them were keen to hire a small theatre and experiment with their own work. We always made sure everyone who came to the theatre had a positive experience and our network grew, embracing a wide range of art and entertainment.
“Angela left after about a year. Cleo and I continued for 20 years, with very little help but a lot of goodwill”.
In 2016, Darker and Sylvestre stepped back to “let the next generation steer the theatre forwards”.
This new cohort includes Laura Killeen, who joined the team in 2021 after the venue reopened in the wake of the Covid lockdowns - “although I had been performing and directing in the building for many years beforehand, and knew and loved the space well”, she tells East End Review.
Killeen says that while the theatre is not the same as it was five - let alone 30 - years ago, “a lot has stayed the same”.
“The Rosie has always been a welcoming place for theatremakers at all stages of their career, and for audiences to experience a wide variety of artforms and performances”, she adds.
“As the person who runs our theatre, I hope that it is a safe and joyful place to work for our employees as well as attend for our audiences, and a space where everyone receives a warm welcome and leaves better than when they arrived”.
Killeen says she is “proud” to be part of the pub’s all-female leadership cohort and to give “a platform to all voices with a definite focus on women and underrepresented genders”.
“The Stage Directors UK 2023 census shows us that even though women make up the majority of the theatre workforce they hold the minority of positions of power”, she continues.
“That’s ADs [artistic directors], but it’s also board members, critics, drama university professors and even Olivier winners.
“I am so lucky to be the AD of a beloved London theatre like the Rosie, and I feel proud that we have had women in this role for the past 30 years”.
The theatre’s storied past has, according to legend, included performances from early industry legends including Charlie Chaplin.
In more recent years, the likes of Jessie Buckley, Kathy Burke, Mark Watson and Colin MacFarlane have graced the stage, with a host of new events regularly taking place.
In the five years since Killeen joined the team, the venue has come to host three festivals - Gather Together Storytelling Festival, Look For The Woman Clowning Festival and Curious Puppets Festival - and has participated in the Camden Fringe.
It also gives back to the community by hosting free events and upskill training.
“We are an independent theatre but, happily, we are now in a position to make some community investments such as free performances for families and people of all ages, free workshops, free rehearsal space to artists of the global majority and offering our staff paid training to upskill”, Killeen continues.
“Great things begin at the Rosie”.
