ATG Entertainment has today announced that the Duke of York’s Theatre will be renamed The Tom Stoppard Theatre, creating a lasting tribute in the heart of the West End to one of the most influential playwrights in British theatre. The renaming also recognises Sir Tom’s longstanding association with the St Martin’s Lane venue. Sir Tom Stoppard, who passed away in November 2025, was one of the most acclaimed and widely recognised playwrights of modern times.
Over a career spanning more than five decades, he received a knighthood in 1997 and was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2000. His many honours included a record five Tony Awards for Best Play, three Olivier Awards and an Academy Award for co-writing the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. Across an extraordinary canon of work, Stoppard penned some of the defining masterworks of modern theatre, including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Leopoldstadt.
A new production of Arcadia, directed by Carrie Cracknell, transferred to the West End from the Old Vic and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions (SFP), is currently playing at the newly named Tom Stoppard Theatre until Saturday 12 September 2026, with the venue reimagined in the round especially for the production. The show’s highly anticipated Opening Night coincides
with the announcement of the theatre’s renaming, marking a fitting celebration of Stoppard’s legacy. Stoppard’s connection with the St Martin’s Lane venue spanned many years. In 2009, a celebrated revival of Arcadia played to sold out audiences at the theatre, following the acclaimed 2006 residency of his politically charged and music-filled drama Rock ’n’ Roll.
Physical changes to the theatre’s signage will take place over the coming months, subject to planning approvals. Internal branding and digital updates are also set to roll out in the coming weeks.
Rose Cobbe and St John Donald, Tom’s agents and Literary Executors at United Agents, said: “Tom once wrote: “I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are.” “Though Tom believed in the power of language above all else, we think he would be quietly delighted for this wonderful theatre, where so many of his plays have been staged and where he was a familiar figure at the stage door, cigarette in hand, to bear his name. “As this latest production of Arcadia opens, we are reminded once again of his brilliance, his wit, humanity and moral seriousness in the astonishing body of work that he has left to us.”
Sir Tom Stoppard (3 July 1937 to 29 November 2025) was a British playwright and screenwriter, born Tomáš Sträussler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia. One of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation, his work for stage, film, radio and television earned him a record five Tony Awards for Best Play, three Olivier Awards and an Academy Award. He was knighted in 1997 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 2000
