Marina Theatre

How Theatres Trust has supported Marina Theatre over the years

The Marina Theatre in Lowestoft is the only theatre on our Fifty@50 list to have started life as a roller rink. It was converted into a theatre and then a new building created on the foundations of the original. The Marina Theatre is now an important venue for its coastal and largely rural community.

Like many other theatres, the Marina became a cinema for a period in the last century when entertainment tastes changed, before coming back to live performance use in the 1980s.

The theatre was threatened with closure in 2010 due to financial pressures on its local council owner. We added it to our Theatres at Risk Register at this point, keen to raise the profile of the theatre that is of vital importance to its under-served local community. Thankfully, its period of being at risk was short-lived with the formation of the Marina Theatre Trust, who took on the management of the theatre from the council. Theatres Trust gave advice and support to the Marina Theatre Trust to help it prepare for running the building.

We supported the Marina again during the Covid pandemic with a grant from our Theatre Reopening Fund, helping the theatre to purchase and install equipment to enable it to welcome back audiences safely.

In 2025, the Marina undertook a £3m redevelopment project that would create a new three-storey link building between the theatre and its café, community room and offices located in a neighbouring modern block. Theatres Trust engaged with the Marina Theatre on these plans at pre-application stage and was happy to support the planning application in 2023.

We were delighted to see the Marina reopen last year, with a range of improvements including an accessible lift, additional toilets, expanded box office, and more legroom and accessible seating options in the auditorium.

This case study was produced as part of our Fifty@50 campaign to mark our 50th anniversary in 2026. 

Photo credit: Foster Wilson Size