Chichester Festival Theatre season announcement

• Theatre in the Park is unveiled with major new productions of Barnum and Neville’s Island
• Richard Eyre returns to Chichester to direct The Pajama Game
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui returns to the Minerva Theatre, then transfers to the West End – Henry Goodman reprises his award-winning role
• Festival 2012 achieved record-breaking audience figures of 220,000

Theatre in the Park, a temporary state-of-the-art auditorium, will stage two productions at the heart of Chichester’s Festival 2013. The brand new space will be erected in June while the £22 million RENEW redevelopment of the Festival Theatre continues.

Mirroring the Festival Theatre’s auditorium, the purpose-built temporary building will house 1,400 seats and a thrust stage. It will be just a few minutes’ stroll across Oaklands Park from the Festival Theatre site.

Theatre in the Park will be unveiled with a major revival of the musical Barnum presented in association with Cameron Mackintosh. Directed by Timothy Sheader, Artistic Director of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, this production will star the versatile and consummate Broadway entertainer Christopher Fitzgerald in the title role.

Angus Jackson directs Neville’s Island, the second production to be staged in the Theatre in the Park. Tim Firth’s comedy about a disastrous outward bound expedition promises to be a technically and visually ambitious staging.

Richard Eyre returns to Chichester to direct the musical The Pajama Game, which opens the Festival season in the Minerva Theatre. Love is in the air at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory but sparks fly when employees are refused a pay rise.

Other highlights of Festival 2013 include the return of the critically acclaimed production The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, one of the undoubted hits of Festival 2012.  Directed by Chichester’s Artistic Director, Jonathan Church, the production will once again feature Henry Goodman reprising his award-winning performance in the title role. Set in Chicago in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the play is a powerful and sharp-witted parable of the rise of Hitler. Following the Chichester run, the play will transfer to the West End’s Duchess Theatre.

The second play to be directed by Angus Jackson during Festival 2013 will be the world premiere of political drama If Only by David Edgar, which takes a witty and astute look at the world of coalition government.

The season ends with Another Country, Julian Mitchell’s sensitive exploration of sexuality and politics, set against the backdrop of a public school. Directed by Jeremy Herrin, Another Country is co-produced with Theatre Royal Bath Productions in association with Fiery Angel.

Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, directed by Dale Rooks, will present Roald Dahl’s The Witches in the Minerva Theatre over the Christmas period.

Since their appointment in 2006, Jonathan Church and Alan Finch have explored ways of developing a younger audience. Chichester Festival Theatre was one of the most successful participants in the Arts Council’s A Night Less Ordinary scheme to give away tickets to young people in 2009 – 10. During 2012 the Theatre also attracted a significant proportion of younger audience members through its temporary pop-up auditorium, Theatre on the Fly, which staged three critically acclaimed productions, Blue Remembered Hills, Playhouse Creatures and Fred’s Diner.

Chichester Festival Theatre remains committed to encouraging independent theatregoing among younger people during Festival 2013 and this has led to the launch of a new scheme for 18 – 25 year olds. A special allocation of tickets priced at just £8.50 for all performances in both Theatres will be released one month before each production opens. Alongside this initiative, the Theatre is revising its approach to ticket pricing by introducing a ‘flexible’ system. This will fix ticket prices at an early-bird rate for a certain period. After this time, the Theatre will have the option to vary prices in response to demand for the most popular performances.

THE PAJAMA GAME
22 April – 8 June, Minerva Theatre

IF ONLY by DAVID EDGAR WORLD PREMIERE
14 June – 27 July, Minerva Theatre

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE IN ASSOCIATION WITH CAMERON MACKINTOSH PRESENTS
BARNUM
15 July – 31 August, Theatre in the Park

THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI by BERTOLT BRECHT
In a translation by GEORGE TABORI revised by ALISTAIR BEATON
15 August – 14 September, Minerva Theatre

NEVILLE’S ISLAND by TIM FIRTH
11 – 28 September, Theatre in the Park

ANOTHER COUNTRY BY JULIAN MITCHELL
18 September – 19 October, Minerva Theatre

THE WITCHES by ROALD DAHL
Adapted by DAVID WOOD
7 December – 4 January, Minerva Theatre

Release issued by: Chichester Festival Theatre

CHICHESTER THEATRE IN THE WEST END

Book tickets to Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre

LINKS

Chichester Festival Theatre website

 

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Play Winners

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Play Winners

Best New Play

2012 Collaborators by John Hodge
2011 Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris
2010 The Mountaintop
2009 Black Watch by Gregory Burke
2008 A Disappearing Number
2007 Blackbird by David Harrower
2006 On The Shore Of The Wide World by Simon Stephens
2005 The History Boys by Alan Bennett
2004 The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh

The BBC Award for Best New Play

2003 Vincent In Brixton by Nicholas Wright
2002 Jitney by August Wilson
2001 Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall
2000 Goodnight Children Everywhere by Richard Nelson
1999 The Weir by Conor McPherson
1998 Closer by Patrick Marber
1997 Stanley by Pam Gems
1996 Skylight by David Hare
1995 Broken Glass by Arthur Miller
1994 Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
1993 Six Degrees Of Separation by John Guare
1992 Death And The Maiden by Ariel Dorfman
1991 Dancing At Lughnasa by Brian Friel
1989/90 Racing Demon by David Hare
1988 Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker
1987 Serious Money by Caryl Churchill
1986 Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton
1985 Red Noses by Peter Barnes
1984 Benefactors by Michael Frayn
1983 Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
1982 Another Country by Julian Mitchell
1981 Children Of A Lesser God by Mark Medoff
1980 The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, adapted by David Edgar
1979 Betrayal by Harold Pinter
1978 Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark
1977 The Fire That Consumes by Henry de Montherlant, English version by Vivian Cox with Bernard Miles
1976 Dear Daddy by Denis Cannan

Best Revival

2012 Anna Christie by Eugene O’Neill
2011 After the Dance directed by Terence Rattigan
2010 Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
2009 The Histories
2007 The Crucible by Arthur Miller
2006 Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Richard Eyre
2005 Hamlet by William Shakespeare
2004 Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill
2003 Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare and Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov
1995 As You Like It by William Shakespeare
1994 Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
1993 An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley
1992 Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
1991 Pericles by William Shakespeare