After a £28m rebuild, Liverpool's Everyman is once again open to audiences. Artistic director Gemma Bodinetz says the theatre reflects the city's renegade spirit

'Integral to the cultural vibrancy of the city' … Everyman theatre, Liverpool. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Steve Tompkins had an unusual brief when designing the new Everyman theatre in Liverpool, which reopens this week after a £28m rebuild.

Some of it was obvious: the revamped auditorium and stage had to be accessible to disabled people, there needed to be a proper ventilation system to stop all the fainting in the audience and the new roof really mustn't leak.

But just as important, the architect was told, was that the building didn't feel "too posh".

Speaking ahead of the first performances in the new venue on 8 March, Tompkins explained: "We wanted to make sure the building felt rich and tactile, that it didn't feel too posh … I think it would be the wrong thing for the Everyman. It has always been such an inclusive theatre."

Gemma Bodinetz, artistic director of the Everyman since 2003, agreed: "We tried very hard to create a new building that feels warm and has that earthiness, that democratic humanity that the old Everyman had. We didn't want it to feel chi-chi or too-cool-for-school or anything like that."

"The aspiration," said Tompkins, "is that the building will look better in 25 years than the day it opens."

The original Everyman was founded in 1964 in Hope Hall, a former chapel turned cinema on Liverpool's boho Hope Street. It quickly built a reputation for breaking the mould and spotting top-notch talent.

Roger McGough and the Liverpool poets considered the theatre their home – Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine opened there in 1986, with Noreen Kershaw playing the bored scouse housewife who reinvents herself in the Greek sunshine.

'I cried when the bulldozers came' … Gemma Bodinetz, artistic director of the Everyman. Photograph: Eamonn Mccabe

More recently, Pete Postlethwaite's King Lear and David Morrissey's Macbeth gathered acclaim well beyond Merseyside's borders. Other actors to grace the theatre's unusual "thrust" stage, which juts out 10 metres into the audience, include Julie Walters, Jonathan Pryce, Alison Steadman, Antony Sher and Bill Nighy.

Despite being built from scratch, the new building retains the spirit of the old.

The best bits have been recreated: outside, the theatre's red neon sign has been updated for the 21st century in a new font, christened "Merseyside Neon" by graphic designer Jake Tilson. Above it is the theatre's crowning glory, the Portrait Wall, which features 105 monochrome portraits of Liverpool's everymen and women, ordinary locals chosen from thousands who turned up to open photo shoots across the city. As well as underlining the Everyman's unofficial mission statement of being by the people, for the people, the wall acts as a handy shading device, working with four huge ventilation funnels which should naturally air the building and keep its carbon footprint low.

Inside, the poky old box office has been replaced with a light, bright foyer on three floors. There's a new ground floor cafe with sliding doors, ready to open out on sunny days.

Old timers will be relieved to hear this has not usurped the beloved basement bistro, which has been rebuilt below ground with the same familiar low ceilings. Retaining the low lighting which has shaded many post-show kisses from public glare over the years, the new bistro is bigger than it seems, having been divided into small domestic units which aim to feel cosy whether there are a dozen people having a morning coffee or 250 in for a first-night party.

On the first floor is the auditorium, which has exposed walls built with 25,000 bricks salvaged from the old Hope Hall, giving "a lovely poetic sense of continuity", said Tompkins.

The layout will be familiar to Everyman veterans, with the audience wrapped around the huge thrust stage on three sides, enveloping the actors and magnifying the sense of shared experience – something Tompkins said was "one of the most powerful things" about the old theatre.

The materials used are classy but understated – not posh. There's a lot of board-marked concrete, exposed brick, painted plywood, quite rough oak floorboards and wooden bars.

Explosive entrance … the opening of the new Everyman theatre, March 2014. Photograph: Stevealand

The Everyman has a special place in many Liverpudlian hearts so it's no wonder Bodinetz, who is also at the helm of the nearby Playhouse, was nervous when Tompkins said he wanted to knock the old building down.

"If you're the person sort of responsible for knocking the Everyman down, you find out very forcibly what the city feels about the building," she said. "It was a terrifying thing to do and I sat and cried when the bulldozers came, but a lot of Liverpool did as well."

She added: "We realised that theatres are absolutely integral for the cultural vibrancy of the city. They also hold memories and we were getting letters from people who had met their husbands in the bistro; who had fallen in love at the show or had found theatre and then started a career in it. They are very powerful things, these cultural centres, and this one had been so reflective of the spirit of its city. At its best the Everyman felt like all the best things about Liverpool – it has a renegade spirit, it's been a very democratic place, a theatre of the people. Its best work has reflected the particularity and the concerns of Liverpool, while at the same time having a universal importance."

People loved the old building despite its obvious inadequacies, said Bodinetz, to the point that they didn't notice the buckets catching rain water in the auditorium and had become fond of the gaffer tape which held together the bronze velvet cinema seats. Behind the scenes, the company grumbled about the lack of offices, meeting rooms, rehearsal spaces and pretty much everything else you'd expect from a modern commercial theatre. But they too loved it regardless, said Bodinetz, likening it to a favourite piece of clothing you wear until it's beyond repair. Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out it has had its day, she explained – when the theatre was trying to drum up sponsorship for Postlethwaite's Lear, a "juicy" sponsor was interested until they saw the place and said "oh, our clients wouldn't really want to come here".

If the Everyman had to be rebuilt, Tompkins was the obvious man for the job. No one in Britain has such a back catalogue where modern theatres are concerned. He re-imagined The Young Vic theatre and National Theatre Studio in London, and is currently working on the conversion of Battersea Arts Centre.

Fiddling with what Tompkins calls "precious cultural stock" carries great responsibility.

"It's nothing to do really with the physical fabric of the building, it's just the accumulated narratives that have built up over the years and the mythologies that have built up around a theatre like the Everyman," he said. "It's not so much to do with the physical fabric, but protecting the spirit of the building, protecting the idea, making sure you are discharging your responsibility to the past but also just as importantly you are setting up the conditions where the theatre can continue its role into the future for generations of theatre audiences."

The first show of the new Everyman's season will be Twelfth Night. Originally Bodinetz had wanted to open with a new play, only to think better of it. "From my experience of directing new plays, all that matters is the play and that the writer is served. Right now, we are learning about the space, we've still got builders in here and there. I thought: 'Shakespeare can take all this. He knows that Twelfth Night is a great play.'"

So Twelfth Night it is, starring Matthew Kelly as Sir Toby Belch and Nick Woodeson as Malvolio, both alumni from the great Everyman repertory company of 1974, alongside Bill Nighy and Julie Walters.

Bodinetz said she wanted to pay tribute to the Everyman's inclusive past by choosing an ensemble piece: "I felt that the first play of the new Everyman as a democratic place should not just have one star face on the poster."

Twelfth Night captured the spirit of "love and naughtiness" the Everyman has long embodied, she said, adding that it just happened to have the perfect last lines to mark the beginning of a bright new era of theatre in Liverpool:

"A great while ago the world begun,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

But that's all one, our play is done,

And we'll strive to please you every day."

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