Chichester Festival Theatre season announcement
February 21, 2013
- 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
Douglas Hodge to follow La Cage Aux Folles by starring in Barnum?
April 4, 2011
In a live US radio interview with On Broadway’s Seth Rudetsky, our very own Douglas Hodge revealed that he is in talks to star in a revival of Barnum.
Douglas Hodge is currently wowing New York with his “An Evening with Doug Hodge” cabaret show at Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan (can we have this in London next please Mr Hodge?). He then makes his way back to the West End later this year to star in the Donmar’s revival of John Osbourne’s Inadmissible Evidence (from 13 October 2011), directed by Jamie Lloyd.
Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart’s musical Barnum saw Michael Crawford score a huge hit with the show in London in the early 1980s. Prior to that Jim Dale launched the show on Broadway in 1980.
Over the last few years impresario Cameron Mackintosh has talked of wanting to revive the show, and various names have been attached to the project including John Barrowman, Michael Ball – and on Broadway, Neil Patrick Harris.
Hodge has enjoyed great success with La Cage Aux Folles, winning an Olivier and Tony award for his star turn in the Menier Chocolate Factory production which transferred to Playhouse Theatre in London before heading to Broadway.
LINKS
RUMOUR CHECK-LIST
- Show: Barnum
- Writers: book by Mark Bramble, lyrics by Michael Stewart, music by Cy Coleman
- Director: ?
- Starring: Douglas Hodge?
- Theatre: ?
- Date: 2012?
Source: SiriusXM’s On Broadway (16/03/11)
Douglas Hodge and Kelsey Grammer in La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway
OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Actor Winners
June 18, 2010
OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Actor Winners
Best Actor
2012 Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller for Frankenstein
2011 Roger Allam for Henry IV Parts 1 & 2
2010 Mark Rylance for Jerusalem
2009 Derek Jacobi for Twelfth Night
2008 Chiwetel Ejiofor in Othello
2007 Rufus Sewell for Rock ‘N’ Roll
2006 Brian Dennehy for Death Of A Salesman
2005 Richard Griffiths for The History Boys
2004 Matthew Kelly for Of Mice And Men
2003 Simon Russell Beale for Uncle Vanya
2002 Roger Allam for Privates On Parade
2001 Conleth Hill for Stones In His Pockets
2000 Henry Goodman for The Merchant Of Venice
1999 Kevin Spacey for The Iceman Cometh
1998 Ian Holm for King Lear
1997 Antony Sher for Stanley
1996 Alex Jennings for Peer Gynt
1995 David Bamber for My Night With Reg
1994 Mark Rylance for Much Ado About Nothing
1993 Robert Stephens for Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2)
1992 Nigel Hawthorne for The Madness Of George III
1991 Ian McKellen for Richard III
1989/90 Oliver Ford Davies for Racing Demon
1987 Michael Gambon for A View From The Bridge
1986 Albert Finney for Orphans
1985 Antony Sher for Richard III and Torch Song Trilogy
Actor of the Year in a New Play
1988 David Haig for Our Country’s Good
1984 Brian Cox for Rat In The Skull
1983 Jack Shepherd for Glengarry Glen Ross
1982 Ian McDiarmid for lnsignificance
1981 Trevor Eve for Children Of A Lesser God
1980 Roger Rees for Nicholas Nickleby
1979 Ian McKellen for Bent
1978 Tom Conti for Whose Life Is It Anyway?
1977 Michael Bryant for State Of Revolution
1976 Paul Copley for King And Country
Actor of the Year in a Revival
1988 Brian Cox for Titus Andronicus
1984 Ian McKellen for Wild Honey
1983 Derek Jacobi for Cyrano De Bergerac
1982 Stephen Moore for A Doll’s House
1981 Daniel Massey for Man And Superman
1980 Jonathan Pryce for Hamlet
1979 Warren Mitchell for Death Of A Salesman
1978 Alan Howard for Coriolanus
1977 Ian McKellen for Pillars Of The Community
1976 Alan Howard for Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V
Best Actor in a Musical
2012 Bertie Carvel for Matilda The Musical
2011 David Thaxton for Passion
2010 Aneurin Barnard for Spring Awakening
2009 Douglas Hodge for La Cage aux Folles
2008 Michael Ball for Hairspray
2007 Daniel Evans for Sunday In The Park With George
2006 James Lomas, George Maguire and Liam Mower for Billy Elliot – The Musical
2005 Nathan Lane for The Producers
2004 David Bedella for Jerry Springer – The Opera
2003 Alex Jennings for My Fair Lady
2002 Philip Quast for South Pacific
2001 Daniel Evans for Merrily We Roll Along
2000 Simon Russell Beale for Candide
1999 The cast of Kat and The Kings
1998 Philip Quast for The Fix
1997 Robert Lindsay for Oliver!
1996 Adrian Lester for Company
1995 John Gordon Sinclair for She Loves Me
1994 Alun Armstrong for Sweeney Todd
1993 Henry Goodman for Assassins
1992 Alan Bennett for Talking Heads
1991 Philip Quast for Sunday In The Park With George
1989/90 Jonathan Pryce for Miss Saigon
1988 Con O’Neill for Blood Brothers
1987 John Bardon and Emil Wolk for Kiss Me Kate
1986 Michael Crawford for The Phantom Of The Opera
1985 Robert Lindsay for Me And My Girl
1984 Paul Clarkson for The Hired Man
1983 Denis Lawson for Mr. Cinders
1982 Roy Hudd for Underneath The Arches
1981 Michael Crawford for Barnum
1980 Denis Quilley for Sweeney Todd
1979 Anton Rodgers for Songbook
