South Bank 1997-2002

October: Trevor Nunn succeeds Richard Eyre as Director.

With funds from the Royal National Theatre Endowment Fund and the National Lottery Fund, the NT buys the Old Vic Annexe, home to the Studio.

Six of the seven possible Evening Standard Awards go to the National.

1998

Trevor Nunn's production of a previously unperformed play by Tennessee Williams, Not About Nightingales, is a huge success in the Cottesloe, in a co-production with Moving Theatre and in association with the Alley Theatre, Houston. It later plays in Texas and New York.

David Hare's Amy's View and Patrick Marber's Closer transfer to the West End.

Oh What a Lovely War, staged in a specially made big top tent, tours the UK.

Sponsorship from the Hamlyn Foundation brings many first-time visitors to the NT.

Watch This Space summer festival fills Theatre Square, the newly created space outside the National, opened when Lottery-funded renovations of the front-of-house areas are completed.

The National launches its website on the internet.

1999

More of the National's work than ever before is seen in the West End (Tom Stoppard's Invention of Love, Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, as well as Priestley's An Inspector Calls), and on Broadway (Not About Nightingales, Closer and Amy's View).

Trevor Nunn launches a new Ensemble of actors with Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Over the year NT Ensemble also appeared in Candide, Money, The Merchant of Venice, The Darker Face of the Earth, Summerfolk and Honk!The Ugly Duckling.

NT Ensemble 99 are:
Jude Akuwudike
David Alder
Roger Allam
David Arneil
David Bamber
Cristina Barreiro
Jasper Britton
Miquel Brown
Allyson Brown
Thomas Brown-Lowe
Michael Bryant
David Burt
Robert Burt
Claudia Cadette
Pauline Carville
Martin Chamberlain
Anthony Clegg
Oliver Cotton
Raymond Coulthard
Jim Creighton
Derbhle Crotty
Ruddy L Davis
Simon Day
Sophie Ann Day
Rosie Day
Sam Douglas
Vernon Douglas
Jennifer Ehle
Daniel Evans
Andrew French
Henry Goodman
Edward Gower
Ceri Ann Gregory
Alexander Hanson
Victoria Hamilton
Alexander Hanson
Richard Henders
Diveen Henry
Jamaine Hockley
Patricia Hodge
Jack James
Oscar James
Peter de Jersey
Phillip Joseph
Gabrielle Jourdan
Leila Joyce
Alex Kelly
Beverley Klein
Samantha Lavender
Annabel Leventon
Henri McCarthy
Leigh McDonald
Liam McKenna
Samantha Matthew
Charles Millham
Thomas Moll
Tanya Moodie
Sean Mullin
Caroline Nicholls
John Nolan
Cyril Nri
Omar F Okai
Sophie Okonedo
Chu Omambala
Dhobi Oparei
Alastair Parker
Kai Pearce
Sara Powell
Denis Quilley
Saskia Reeves
Elizabeth Renihan
Antony Renshaw
Roxanne Ricketts
Shaleen Robinson
Clive Rowe
Simon Russell Beale
Aislinn Sands
Myra Sands
Adrian Sarple
Imane Soussi
Mark Springer
Gabriel Swartland
Gilz Terera
Mark Umbers
Lawrence Werber
David Weston
Michael Wildman
Jax Williams
Sean Williams

The 100 most significant plays of the century are celebrated in NT2000 Platforms.

Bill Bryden's production of The Mysteries (The Nativity, The Passion and Doomsday) returns to the Cottesloe to celebrate a new millennium.

The National wins 25 awards for its work this year.

2000

John Caird's production of Hamlet, starring Simon Russell Beale, visits Elsinore and later Belgrade as part of a major tour which ends in New York before returning to the NT.

Two linked plays (House and Garden) by Alan Ayckbourn take place in the Olivier and Lyttelton simultaneously, the cast hurrying backstage for successive scenes. The fun continues in the foyers after with a village fete each evening.

2001

Roger Michell's production of Joe Penhall's Cottesloe hit Blue/Orange transfers to the West End. Three other new plays premiered at the National – Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, Mark Ravenhill's Mother Clap's Molly House, and Gregory Burke's Gagarin Way, (a co-production between the Traverse, Edinburgh and the NT Studio) – all transfer to the West End, as does Trevor Nunn's production of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady.

Robert Lepage with Ex Machina visits with his visually stunning The Far Side of the MoonCloudstreet. and Company B Belvoir from Australia with a panoramic family epic lasting five hours, Cloudstreet .

The National celebrates its 25th anniversary on the South Bank with a series of Platforms, an exhibition, and a new publication, In Rehearsal at the National. For the anniversary of the royal opening, on 25 October, the building is lit by specially designed projections, and the celebrations end with a firework finale turning the NT into a giant birthday cake. On the following day there is a single performance of the NT25 Chainplay – 25 playwrights were asked to contribute a scene each, and the results were published daily on the website.

The National Theatre wins a total of 34 awards for its work over the year.

2002

On Saturday 9 March 2002, the 1993 record is broken when the National gives 28 performances of 14 separate productions in 14 theatres:
On the South Bank there was South Pacific in the Olivier, Tartuffe in the Lyttelton, and The Syringa Tree in the Cottesloe; in the West End Noises Off at the Comedy, An Inspector Calls at the Playhouse, The Island at the Old Vic, Mother Clap's Molly House at the Aldwych, Gagarin Way at the Arts, My Fair Lady at Drury Lane, and Humble Boy at the Gielgud; on tour The Good Hope was in Brighton; and on Broadway Noises Off at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, and Oklahoma! at the Gershwin; and Copenhagen at the Kennedy Center, Washington, each of them with a matinee.

Barclays' Invest and Inspire sponsorship of the year's work in the Olivier also makes possible All Aboard! Sunday in the South Pacific – when hundreds of families enjoy a day of free entertainment, music, street theatre, workshops, storytelling, backstage tours, and a grand finale in Theatre Square.

Transformation presents thirteen world premieres in the Lyttelton (transformed for the season by a single sweep of seats from circle to stage) and the Loft, a new 100-seat theatre created in the circle foyer. The season, from April to September, introduces new audiences to new work at new prices.

Nick Starr succeeds Genista McIntosh as Executive Director.

Trevor Nunn directs Glenn Close in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire; Tom Stoppard's epic trilogy The Coast of Utopia (Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage); and Cole Porter's Anything Goes. Yukio Ninagawa's company from Japan visit with Shakespeare's Pericles.

Shell in the UK announce they are to sponsor the National's youth theatre programme InterNational Connections, in a major new partnership worth £500,000 over two years, thereby doubling the number of schools and youth theatre groups that are able to take part in the programme each year.