Big names and world premieres at CFT
You can almost hear now the purr of pleasure which is about to sound around Chichester.
Jonathan Church's third season in charge at Chichester Festival Theatre – announced today – is on paper his most mouthwatering yet.
Buoyed by two years of significant success, he's brought together big names and big playwrights and thrown into the mix some enticing world premieres.
Diana Rigg, Susan Hampshire, Brian Conley, Michael Pennington and Robert Lindsay are among the stars; Chekhov, Pirandello and Somerset Maugham are among the playwrights.
Calendar Girls, in its first stage outing, and new works by Ronald Harwood and Martin Sherman, are the premieres.
As Jonathan says, with a 1,200-seater auditorium, stars are a vital part of the mix: "Our mission is to get the audience back up to a level where the theatre can be vibrant and can also take risks.
"There are two new plays in the Minerva and the new adaptation of the film (Calendar Girls) in the main-house. These are big, complicated productions – and exactly what we should be doing – but to make these float we need the stars."
Setting the ball rolling, in that all-important first-play-of-the-season slot, will be Diana Rigg in The Cherry Orchard. Natalie Cassidy, better known as Sonia from EastEnders, plays Dunyasha.
"The Cherry Orchard was a project I looked at for the first season I arrived here. We began talking with Diana Rigg about two years ago. We needed to find a director she was passionate about working with, and Philip Franks became that annointed person. They have worked together
in the past."
Rigg will play Madame Ranevskaya in Anton Chekhov's masterpiece. As a family return to their country estate before it is due to be auctioned, they become embroiled in a past from which they refuse to escape.
Other members of the cast include William Gaunt, Maureen Lipman and Jemma Redgrave.
"It has always been one of my favourite plays," Jonathan said.
"Chekhov is one of those writers that I think really suits our main stage. His plays are big, beautiful theatrical plays. Some of them feel like they are two thirds of the way to being perfect, but this one is the whole of the way there.
"I have admired Diana Rigg all my life, partly through her TV profile, but the thing that made me realise what a great stage actress she is was seeing her in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Her power on stage is extraordinary."
And that's a word he would apply also to Brian Conley, who leads the cast in the summer's big musical The Music Man.
Last year's musical ran straight through as a block; this year's musical will run in repertoire, therefore running over a longer period and allowing audiences to grow.
"We had been talking to Brian for a while about it. It's a part that needs incredible charisma and stage energy – a very American energy. To me, there are only two or three actors in Britain who could pull that off – and Brian is one of them."
Conley plays fraudster Harold Hill, determined to scam his way across America, convincing parents that he can teach their children music.
The show is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, artistic director of Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Conley's theatre credits include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Me And My Girl.
Next in the main season, Susan Hampshire – directed by Jonathan himself – stars in Somerset Maugham's The Circle. Rarely performed, The Circle is a satire on the compromises and bargains of married life.
And for Hampshire, it's a piece with long associations. She appeared in it 30 years ago at the CFT alongside Googie Withers. Hampshire now moves to the Withers role.
For July and August, Jonathan explained, he was looking for a good British comedy – much as Hobson's Choice was in the corresponding part of the season last year. The Circle fitted the bill.
"I wanted something that would suit our audience, something that was very English. It's a play which has been a West End hit four times in its life."
Rounding off the main-house season is the premiere of the stage version of the hugely-popular film Calendar Girls.
Tim Firth's new adaptation of his film follows the fortunes of a group of extraordinary women, all members of the very ordinary Knapely Women's Institute, who persuade each other to pose for a charity calendar with a difference.
"Tim is considering making it work theatrically by having 12 women and just one man playing all the male parts. Whether that will happen, I don't know."
As for casting, Jonathan said it would be foolish even to consider seeking out anyone from the film: "We have to create something new."
And its timing, at the end of the summer, should increase its chance of a regional touring life afterwards.
For the Minerva programme see next pageFunny Girl opens Minerva season
Opening the Minerva season will be the celebrated musical Funny Girl, directed by Angus Jackson.
Based on the life and career of Broadway and film star Fanny Brice and her turbulent relationship with gambler Nicky Arnstein, it will star Samantha Spiro.
"You need a great comedienne who can act and sing, and Sam is that rare beast. We had to get her approved to get the rights from America. Because of her stage profile both sides of the Atlantic, she was very, very rapidly approved."
Next in the Minerva season will be Pirandello's Six Characters In Search Of An Author, directed by Rupert Goold who directed last year's massively-successful Minerva production of Macbeth.
"The play is a great classic," Jonathan said. "For me, it's a wonderfully dramatic premise, surreal and absurd – this group of actors that arrive looking for a story, and then the director takes them through aspects of their lives that help them piece together what the meaning of life might be."
The Minerva season continues with two plays from Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright Ronald Harwood, who lives at Slindon.
Taking Sides will be a revival of a classic which premiered at the Minerva to huge acclaim in the mid-1990s; its companion piece, now receiving its premiere, is Collaboration – both plays about the Nazi oppression and about art. Philip Franks will direct.
Taking Sides focuses on conductor Wilhelm Furtwngler. Prized by Hitler as the cultural jewel in the crown of the Third Reich, he became the perfect post-war target for interrogation as a Nazi sympathiser. In Harwood's play, Major Steve Arnold, who has witnessed the horrors of Belsen, is about to cross-examine the conductor.
Collaboration begins in 1931 in a spirit of optimism as composer Richard Strauss and writer Stephan Zweig embark on an invigorating artistic partnership. However, Zweig is a Jew and the Nazis are on the march.
Starring in both will be Michael Pennington. In Taking Sides, Pennington, who played the American major in the premiere, now crosses sides to play Furtwngler. In Collaboration, he plays Strauss.
Both are full-length plays which stand by themselves: "But it will be such a rich picture if you see both," Jonathan said.
Concluding the Minerva season will be Martin Sherman's new
play Aristo.
Robert Lindsay plays tycoon Aristotle Onassis in a world premiere based on the events and politics of his life, including his complex connections with the Kennedy family, surrounding his marriage to Jackie Kennedy.
For dates and booking information, see next pageDates and booking information
Main house
THE CHERRY ORCHARD by Anton Chekhov
May 15 – June 7
THE MUSIC MAN by Meredith Willson.
June 23 – August 30
THE CIRCLE by Somerset Maugham
July 22 – August 29
CALENDAR GIRLS by Tim Firth
September 5-27
Minerva
FUNNY GIRL: Music by Jule Styne and Lyrics by Bob Merrill
April 28 – June 14
SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR by Luigi Pirandello.
A new version by Rupert Goold and Ben Power
June 27 – August 23
TAKING SIDES AND COLLABORATION by Ronald Harwood
July 16 – August 30
ARISTO by Martin Sherman
September 11 – October 11
TOAD OF TOAD HALL by AA Milne
August 4-16, Chichester Festival Youth Theatre Promenade performance at Rolls-Royce, Goodwood
Priority Booking for Friends of the Theatre opens today.
General booking opens online only on Thursday March 6 click here for information with in person and phone bookings from Monday March 10. Box Office 01243 781312
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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