The Theatre was originally commissioned to be the new town hall but after the federation of the six towns took place in 1910 to create the city of Stoke-on-Trent its original purpose as a town hall became obsolete. The building was designed by architects Russell & Cooper and upon its completion in 1911 became a performance venue. The foundation stone was laid by Alderman Sydney Malkin.
The theatre closed for a time in 1998 due to requiring repairs but after a change of leaseholder in 2002 held occasional events from 2003 to 2014. It is currently ‘mothballed’ with no concrete plans for its future currently in place. There was some paperwork lying around inside marked ‘Development Opportunity’ so hopefully something will happen soon.
Explore wise few little pipes to crawl over and under, and up through a trap door, nothing too fancy or laborious tbf.
Enjoyable explore that has recently become very popular, there was a lot of traffic in the location when I was there, and a group of 6 or 7 weird people which kept eyeballing us; all good fun 
Simon Wilson