The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is located in Covent Garden and is the most recent in a line of four theatres on the same ground, the first dating back to 1663. This makes it London’s oldest theatre and one of the most important in the English-speaking world. For the first two centuries of its existence, it hosted spoken plays and dramas, and not musical performances. The original building was destroyed in a fire in 1672 and the second, designed by Christopher Wren opened in 1674. Lasting nearly 120 years, the building was destroyed and rebuilt in 1791 due to new management by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This building only lasted 15 years and was subsequently destroyed in a fire. The present building has existed since 1812 and is owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Recent musicals that have been staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane include Miss Saigon running for a successful ten years from 1989, and a musical adaptation of The Lord of the Rings from 2007 to 2008.