We aim to stir, delight, challenge, move and amaze with a bold and continually evolving mix of new and re-discovered plays in our unique in-the-round space. We want to change lives by telling remarkable stories from a wide variety of times and places, filtered through the singular imagination of our writers and the remarkable close-up presence of our actors.

A theatre of this scale, with the audience wrapped around the players, invites acting to be the centre of the experience. This is theatre as a figurative art: the human being literally at its centre. We want to experience voices and stories from our past and our present alongside visions of the future. Life as it's lived: unplugged and un-miked. Close-up magic. Truths the hand can touch.

Over its 42-year history the Orange Tree has had a very strong track record in discovering writers and promoting their early work, as well re-discovering artists from the past whose work had either been disregarded or forgotten. Martin Crimp, James Saunders, Vaclav Havel, Fay Weldon and Torben Betts were championed at early stages of their development, and the reputations of Rodney Ackland, Harley Granville Barker, Susan Glaspell, John Whiting and Githa Sowerby have undergone radical re-assessment after seasons of their work at the Orange Tree.