Naming the theatre after Sir Tom, who died in November 2025, “felt like the right and natural way to keep him among us”, said Andrew Rawlinson, ATG Entertainment’s business director in London.
“Sir Tom Stoppard gave the British theatre some of its most brilliant and best loved work, and he did it with a wit and a humanity that audiences carried home with them,” he said.
The announcement was welcomed by Stoppard’s children – Ollie, Barny, Will and Ed Stoppard – who said: “The West End was close to his heart and we feel sure he would be thrilled and humbled in equal measure by this great honour.”
Among his plays are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Leopoldstadt.
One of Sir Tom’s plays, Arcadia, is currrently playing at the theatre, which will have its signage changed to the new name in the next few months.
The theatre, which opened in 1892, saw the premiere of JM Barrie’s Peter Pan in 1904 and an appearance of Charlie Chaplin on the stage in 1905.
Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Helen Mirren, Glenda Jackson and Michael Gambon have all appeared at the theatre on London’s St Martin’s Lane.
Nothing in the theatre group’s announcement mentions the former Duke of York – and theatres do change names, such as the Shaftesbury Theatre in London being named after Dame Judi Dench.
A letter to the Stage newspaper last autumn, from a former actor at the Duke of York’s, had said it was time to rename the theatre.
And there have been previous examples of name changes away from the former Prince Andrew and his titles.
The Duke of York Stakes, a horse race run each year at York, is now the Minster Stakes. The Duke of York pub at York station became the Line and Whistle.
Councillors voted to change the name of Prince Andrew Way in Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland and residents in Hellesdon, near Norwich, had raised concerns about Prince Andrew’s Road.
A picture of the former Prince Andrew which once hung over the Duke of York pub in central London was taken down last year.
