A theatre is to open its doors and show off its £6.5m plans for a new home to neighbours and supporters.

Pegasus Theatre is inviting people to drop by between 7.30pm and 9pm on Monday, January 22, to look at drawings of a scheme to take the centre into the future.

The theatre hopes to replace the hotch-potch of rooms at the back of the site in Magdalen Road, East Oxford, to provide a new rehearsal space, workshops for scenery building and offices.

The 1970s building which fronts the theatre is to be kept, but changes will be made to provide more room in the front-of-house area.

This will include a cafe-bar, featuring a large glass frontage on to the street.

Gill Jaggers, head of publicity for the theatre, said: "At the back, there are post-war prefab buildings which are actually falling down and they will be replaced. Everybody who comes here, although they love the building, does get fed up with the fact that there is very little room for them at the front."

The project should also provide the theatre with dressing rooms and a wing space on one side of the stage, neither of which it has had before.

The theatre has secured £2.7m from the Arts Council of England, as well as grants of £271,000 from Oxford City Council and £900,000 from Oxfordshire County Council.

Work on the project is expected to begin in April 2008, when the theatre will close for 18 months.

City councillors were given a preview of the plans in October, and are due to decide whether to give the Pegasus planning permission in the new year.