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 page