The University of Kentucky’s Department of Theatre was established in 1926.  The original Guignol Theatre, located on Euclid Avenue across from what is now the UK Student Center, burned in 1947.  The present facility opened two years later in the newly constructed Fine Arts Building on Rose Street.  Since that time, more than 500,000 patrons have attended events at the Guignol Theatre.  Throughout its history, the Guignol has been a vital performance facility in Lexington:  not only for UK theatre, but also for the Lexington Children’s Theatre and the Lexington Singers, a few groups that for years called the Guignol “home.”

The careers of several distinguished entertainment figures began at the Guignol, including Hollywood actors Jim Varney, Don Galloway, Harry Dean Stanton, Ashley Judd and screenwriter Charles E. Pogue.

The Strollers Dramatic group provided the University of Kentucky with on-campus student entertainment for 27 years. The founding of the Strollers in 1911, shortly after the success of their 1910 production, marked the establishment of the University’s first dramatic club.

In those years, the Strollers set a precedent for university theatres to come, with entirely student-driven plays, annual tours around Kentucky, and the production of original student work. The decline of the organization was caused by the rise of another theatre group on campus, The Romany (renamed The Guignol), which would later become the theatre department. The legacy left by the Strollers is not forgotten, it continues on in the work of the students and faculty of the Department of Theatre at the University of Kentucky.