Chichester Festival Theatre

Blog: Parkland to Performance

Posted: February 5, 2015March 2, 2015 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Thanks to the hard work of an invaluable team of volunteers Pass It On will soon be exhibiting a collection of documents, photographs and objects from the Theatre’s archive. Parkland to Performance will open at The Capitol in Horsham on 17 February and then travel around different venues in West Sussex and east Hampshire during 2015 and into 2016. Curated by a group of eight volunteers, the exhibition has evolved from an archive of 300 boxes, including 1800 folders and countless pieces of paper, into a collection of carefully chosen items that show highlights of the founding of the Theatre and of a number of productions performed at CFT.

Three of our volunteers have shared with us how they became involved in the exhibition strand of Pass It On and their experiences during the process of creating this exhibition.

Continue reading “Parkland to Performance” →

Blog: Charles Weiss

Posted: January 22, 2015February 20, 2015 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

When architectural duo Powell and Moya designed Chichester Festival Theatre in the early ‘60s they brought in Structural Engineer Charles Weiss. Weiss had previously worked with them on the Skylon Folly for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Weiss’ daughter, Emma Cole, has given Pass It On an account of his life and career that helped to build Chichester Festival Theatre and its pioneering suspension roof.

Charles Weiss (1914 – 1985)

My father Charles was born in Budapest in 1914 to Jewish parents. His life as an émigré started early in the 1930s when he was forced through the numerus clausus to go to university in Brno, Czechoslovakia where he studied architecture. He completed his doctorate of architecture in 1936 in Florence where he also worked before moving to Milan.

In 1939 as the European scene worsened, he was offered a passage to Shanghai and managed to secure refuge in Singapore along the way. He worked there as a structural and architectural designer until 1942, escaping on 13 February 1942 just before Singapore was captured by the Japanese. He reached Bombay in March 1942 where he joined the British Army and gained a commission to the Corps of the Royal Engineers. He served mainly in Assam and Burma, eventually commanding an Indian Sapper Company as a Major.

Continue reading “Charles Weiss” →

Blog: Playbox ‘thank yous’

Posted: January 8, 2015February 20, 2015 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Thank you letter The March 1 — Thank you letter from Oscar

One of the most exciting and unique strands of the Pass It On project are our Playboxes. These are a multi-usage teaching resource that we have been developing with local partner schools, using the Festival Theatre’s archive to support key-curricular learning in class. Our three boxes, ‘Performance’, ‘Construction’ and ‘People’ can be used to cover a whole range of subject areas, from English to Drama and even Maths and Science. We’ve focused on Key Stage 2 at primary school level, but as the Playboxes have been used in their ‘proto-type’ phase, some teachers have liked them so much they’ve used them with a whole range of different ages and abilities.

In July 2014, we sent our Performance Box out to all of our schools. Last term, our ‘Construction’ Box, all about the founding and building of the Festival Theatre, went out to our new partner school, The March. The class’ curricular module was ‘Mighty Metals’; we took this as a great opportunity to show off all the building materials that were used both in 1962 and as part of the RENEW project. The architecture of the Grade II* listed Theatre is extremely important to share, so as part of the work that the class was doing with the artefacts we gave them, they also came along to see them in practice at the Theatre.

Continue reading “Playbox ‘thank yous’” →

Blog: It’s all in the telling

Posted: December 8, 2014January 22, 2015 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Listen to Its All In The Telling, our thought-provoking panel discussion with writer and oral historian Rib Davis, writer of Taken at Midnight Mark Hayhurst and Kate Wheeler from the Archiving the Arts initiative with the National Archives, all chaired by author Kate Mosse.

Why do some stories fall out of history? What makes them so fascinating to theatre makers and audiences? In 2014 Pass It On brought together a panel from the worlds of theatre, heritage and oral history to explore these themes. Inspired by the little known true stories behind some of Chichester Festival Theatres 2014 productions Pressure, Pitcairn and Taken at Midnight.

Blog: A round of applause

Posted: November 13, 2014November 14, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

oota1 — The cast of ‘Dressing Down’ by Amelia Mylnowska. From left to right: Katharine Marshall, Olivia Sawbridge, Joe James and Alex Wilcox

Over 190 audience members attended our recent performance of Out of the Archive; it was fantastic to see so many faces and share our archive with them in such a creative way. As the process began in 2013 with sharings from the Youth Theatre, it’s been a long journey to get there. Our Young Playwrights, mentored by writer, Greg Mosse, worked for a couple of months on their scripts. These were then brought to life with Youth Theatre members at several read-throughs. Once finalised, page turned to stage and director Megan Purdie led a cast of seven young performers along with a technical team to create the final pieces. Performed in the Minerva Theatre on Saturday 25 October 2014, the three final plays made us laugh, stirred our hearts and chilled our spines. After the show, we asked cast and audience members what they thought of the process and the performance:

Continue reading “A round of applause” →

Blog: Out of the Archive – this Saturday!

Posted: October 22, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Don’t miss our very special performance of 3 brand new plays that have been inspired by items from our archive.

Find out more about the beginning process of Out of the Archive, the director’s decisions based on the scripts and our most recent update before the performance that will take place this Saturday, 25 October 11am in the Minerva Theatre.

Book tickets and find out more here.

Blog: The then and now

Posted: October 16, 2014November 13, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Admin Office — Our brand new office housed in the extension added to the Festival Theatre as part of RENEW – click image for larger size

We’ve been showing it off for months now; public and private tours for members of the public to experience and explore backstage areas, and the Open Day where we threw open every single door for visitors to find out more about what happens behind the scenes. But this week we have been able to properly enjoy our renewed and refreshed Theatre from a rather special vantage point.

As I write this, I can turn to the right and ahead, and see green parkland space. The Director’s Office is a mere few metres away, and to the left is our brand new meeting room. Yes, we have finally packed up out of our temporary office in the Stephen Pimlott building and officially moved into the Festival Theatre!

The office is housed in the new extension added to the back of the Theatre. A huge lightwell that spills outside light down into this office space also connects the upstairs dressing room area with admin. Everything is open plan and we are all on an equal footing. This is a design feature that you will find in all areas of the Theatre, from the entrance foyer, a space with no ‘VIP’ areas which every single ticket holder can enjoy, to the 12 dressing rooms in the new extension, that all provide the same facilities for each performer – no matter what the name. This sense of democratic space not only enhances the feeling of community within the building (between both cast, crew and admin) but is also an important and original feature of Powell and Moya’s 1962 vision.

Continue reading “The then and now” →

Blog: Welcome to our new team members

Posted: October 3, 2014October 3, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

It is with great excitement that Pass It On can introduce, not one, but two new members of our team. Harriet Rose will be joining us as the third Trainee working on the project, and Nick Corbo-Stewart will be based at the Record Office as our official Chichester Festival Theatre Archivist.

Harriet:

As the Heritage Activities Team doubles its numbers to the grand total of four, I have the honour of becoming the third Heritage Activities Trainee. My predecessor, Becky, has risen to the position of Heritage Activities Officer and I’m sure will be keeping a watchful eye over me to ensure I maintain her high standards!

Having previously worked with the National Trust creating school courses and family events, I am passionate about helping people access and learn more about our Great British Heritage. I have studied Drama at the University of Winchester and Design for Performance and Events at the University for the Creative Arts, and therefore working with Chichester Festival Theatre on the Pass It On project indulges all my interests.

As I write this I am ending my second day in this role and feel I have only just witnessed the tip of the iceberg of this huge and exciting project. Over the next year I will be working in this newly formed quartet along with all the other members of staff at Chichester Festival Theatre and of course all the great volunteers who help make this project possible. Time to get stuck in.

Continue reading “Welcome to our new team members” →

Blog: Bricks and mortar, too

Posted: September 25, 2014October 3, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

1960s Theatre Evershed-Martin 1959-1961_020 — “Have you noticed this new, surging life in the theatre world?” 14 November, 1960 – click image for larger size

“Have you noticed this new, surging life in the theatre world?”

So begins Richard Findlater’s article (see image to the right), published in the Evening Standard on Monday 14^th November, 1960.[1] This particular article captures the excitement and indeed, need, for a new kind of theatre in Britain. As the television set found its way into more and more homes, something needed to change within the world of the theatre to entice the public through auditorium doors. This change is aptly described by Findlater, who writes,

“Into the British theatre of the 1960’s – prematurely looped with crepe by ever-ready mourners – come new bewitching sounds…The sound of unfurling blueprints for new buildings. The sound of men talking about new buildings. And even the sound of buildings being built…TV is supposed to be killing off the live theatre. Yet suddenly there is the stir of new life – not only in plays and players but in bricks and mortar, too.”

Chichester Festival Theatre truly was an exceptional feat of building work, not least because the money raised for the build came from private donations and the local community, who obviously felt the same as Findlater: “We need more theatres and we need new ones.”

Continue reading “Bricks and mortar, too” →

Blog: Stars at CFT: Lauren Bacall

Posted: August 28, 2014September 1, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

the visit photo — Lauren Bacall as Claire Zachanassian in ‘The Visit’ (1995) – click for larger image

“Brakes screech, air hisses, lights flash, smoke billows: the train arrives, and with it Lauren Bacall. Auburn hair, dark glasses, ghostly face: the Chichester audience are as bewitched by the entrance of a screen icon as the citizens of Guellen are by the arrival of a multi-millionairess.”[1]

Known for her feisty femme-fatale roles during Hollywood’s Golden Age of Film Noir (think Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not (1944) in which she starred alongside her would-be husband, Humphrey Bogart), the casting of Bacall in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit as a wealthy heiress who comes to seek revenge on the man who destroyed her reputation, was deemed by some to be perfect. The play was performed as the first in the 1995 Summer season and Bacall herself thought “it’s a wonderful part…although she’s diabolical, one can use various facets of her personality.”[2]

Bacall was always interested in theatre – she worked as a theatre usher in America in 1941 and stated in an interview held on the first day of rehearsals for The Visit that “my original ambition was to go on stage – not into movies – and I keep going back to it…I would never be given the opportunity to do this in films.”[3],[4] Bacall had been in talks with Duncan Weldon about the production for 3 years before it came to fruition, waiting for the right space to hold the large cast of 36. When Weldon was appointed Artistic Director in 1995, they decided the Festival Theatre would be the perfect place to try it.[5]

Continue reading “Stars at CFT: Lauren Bacall” →

Blog: Posters from the CFT at the CFC

Posted: August 21, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

poster3 — The group believe this to be Fiona Fullerton, a regular performer at Chichester Festival Theatre. The costume and dated signature in the bottom left corner points towards the production of ‘Henry VIII’ in 1991.

The CFC: Chichester Football Club, the building between the Squash Club and the Theatre. It’s a space the Pass It On team has been working in during the restoration of the Festival Theatre. It’s also where I’ve recently been part of a group opening large parcels wrapped in layers of bubble-wrap and sticky tape, containing framed advertising posters and production photographs of many of the actors who have appeared in plays put on at Chichester Festival Theatre.

The task involved carefully opening the ‘parcels’, each of which had been labelled with various identification numbers and recording information about the contents of each ‘parcel’. We were given a chart to complete for every step of the way, so that nothing was missed. This included details of the label, the condition of the piece, its size and whether it was in colour or black and white. This forms part of the archiving process that is taking place throughout the project. We then had to try and identify the subject/s in the photograph and the production from which it came. Not an easy job. Hardly any of the boards, on which the work was mounted, had any information as to what it referred. They were like lost souls waiting to be remembered.

Continue reading “Posters from the CFT at the CFC” →

Blog: The exhibition work begins…

Posted: August 14, 2014August 14, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

07.08.14 5 — Our prospective exhibition volunteers peruse items from the archive.

Some of you may remember an exhibition that was held in 2012 at Pallant House Gallery to coincide with the Theatre’s 50^th anniversary. Many of those who attended this exhibition commented on the creative display of ephemera from the Theatre’s history, including old programmes and set designs. In 2015, a new exhibition all about the history of Chichester Festival Theatre will tour several venues across West Sussex, though this time, the entire exhibition will be researched, curated and designed by Pass It On volunteers.

Last week we held our first session to introduce our prospective volunteers to the challenge of creating a modular and interactive exhibition. The exhibition will provide new insight into the inner workings of Chichester Festival Theatre, using items from our archive and memorabilia collection. We’ll also have access to archive footage from the 1960s and audio clips taken from the interviews we’ve been collecting as part of our oral history strand. This allows for interactive possibilities and we’re even planning on running special events and activities during the exhibition’s stay at each venue.

Continue reading “The exhibition work begins…” →

Blog: Shooting stars

Posted: August 7, 2014August 21, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

The Last of Mrs Cheyney edited from contact sheet 2 — The glamourous Joan Collins in ‘The Last of Mrs Cheyney’ (1980) – click image for larger size

Over a series of posts, I’ll be exploring the casting of a handful of Hollywood actresses who have performed at Chichester Festival Theatre, including Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Joan Collins and Kim Cattrall. There is something of an air of mystery about a Hollywood star; how watching their screen performance is as close as us mere mortals could ever get. And yet, we must remind ourselves those immortal stars of the silver screen are indeed, real-life actors and actresses, and a thespian’s true calling removes all cameras and puts them onto a stage. A thrust stage, to be precise.

Joan Collins comes to Chichester

Joan Collins starred as Mrs. Cheyney in The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, the first production of the 1980 Summer Season, which also included Terra Nova, Much Ado About Nothing, and Old Heads and Young Heart. She was no stranger to the stage, having performed in the West End as a young girl since 1946 before heading to America to make her mark in Hollywood (although, of course, it was the television show Dynasty that she is most remembered for) [1].

Continue reading “Shooting stars” →

Blog: Theatre on the Fly

Posted: July 31, 2014July 31, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

TOTF_June_1_4fec483add802 — Temporary Theatre – ‘Theatre on the Fly’ (2012) – click image for larger size

@DrumheadDave follows the Pass It On account on Twitter. After nominating ‘Theatre on the Fly’ for CFT’s 100 Greatest, we asked him to share more of his memories about this unique temporary structure.

@DrumheadDave:

Of all the celebrations that took place for Chichester Festival Theatre’s 50^th anniversary in 2012, ‘Theatre on the Fly’ was the one thing that really captured my imagination and compelled me to get involved. Theatre on the Fly seemed like a blank sheet of paper. It was temporary, it was on the fly, it was an opportunity do and try so many things that the conventions of the main house precluded.

Continue reading “Theatre on the Fly” →

Blog: Memories of The Royal Hunt of the Sun

Posted: July 24, 2014July 29, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

1964 Royal Hunt of the Sun costume alterations Robert Stephens Jean Skaptason (right) and Vera Martin_edited-1 copy — Robert Stephens takes a break during costume alterations. From our digital archive (original photo: Jean Skaptason, who sits on the right) – click image for larger size

“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us”

Those of us who, like Oscar Wilde, instinctively know that we attend the theatre for the sheer love of the experience, will realise that it has something to do with the metaphysical scrapbooks locked away in our skulls – memories – the stuff of life. Like a good book, a humdinger of a tune, or a masterful piece of cinema, a Chichester Festival Theatre stage production is up there with the best of those cherished memories.

Nothing illustrates this so well as the transcripts of some of the interviews conducted by the dedicated team of oral history volunteers in the Pass It On project. These transcripts reflect a rich history of story-telling that complements the art of stage performance perfectly. Take, for instance, the reminiscences of Catherine Lambert, wife of the late Jack Lambert, Literary and Arts Editor of the Sunday Times. Catherine evokes the magic of a summer evening trip to the theatre in 1964 to see Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

“It was a lovely journey in the car going down from London… I used to look for the line of the South Downs and I knew we were coming near to Chichester.”

Continue reading “Memories of The Royal Hunt of the Sun” →

Blog: Laughter, tears and magic

Posted: July 17, 2014July 17, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

rob4 — Youth Theatre Alumni perform onstage (Photography: Georgina Downs, Phillipa Burt and Daniel Fearn)

“I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Robert and Philip in the Youth Theatre play, Jane”, said my mother’s friend to my mother, one day in late April, 1991. A stunned silence, then: “What. Youth. Theatre. Play?” was mum’s reply. The play in question was Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations; mum’s response was due to the fact she and my dad had expressly forbidden my brother Phil and I to be involved in it so near to our exams. So I’m ashamed to say, we snuck out of the house anyway each evening for rehearsals and performances. In hindsight, it was an extremely irresponsible thing to do, but I did say I would be candid about these memories.

Recalling memories of Chichester Festival Youth Theatre has been like re-reading a favourite book over again. And Ernie’s is my favourite chapter! As suggested above, recounting these would not be complete nor honest, if left to what we did on stage. When you have outgoing youngsters together in a theatrical environment you will always get the ‘high spirits’, and for me, these were the best bits of Ernie.

Continue reading “Laughter, tears and magic” →

Blog: Emerging Stories

Posted: July 10, 2014July 17, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

CFT Emergind Stories-7 — Attendees at the talk held at Chichester Library, 25 June 2014

On Wednesday 25 June, 60 eager people gathered at the Library in Chichester to hear from Simon Barker, Head of English and Creative Writing at Chichester University. An English Professor and Theatre historian, Simon had been the first professional researcher to be granted access to the Theatre’s emerging archive and we were all looking forward to finding out what he had selected to share with us.

Continue reading “Emerging Stories” →

Blog: The musical at Chichester Festival Theatre

Posted: July 3, 2014July 17, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Harry Secombe and Company — The Company of ‘Pickwick’ – click image for larger size

The musical has been around since the mid-nineteenth century. Since about 1866 theatregoers have been packing out auditoriums to see story, song and dance come together. Although opened in 1962, it wasn’t until 1981 that the Chichester Festival Theatre stage brought life to the musical with The Mitford Girls by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin.

The Mitford Girls opened to mixed reviews, some dubbing it ‘marvellous’whilst others preferred the straight acting of the plays they had become used to at their theatre. However, in 1993, the hit show of the season was Pickwick; a musical based on Dickens’Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Both audience and Theatre staff adored the production and it went on to play at Sadler’s Wells, London.

Continue reading “The musical at Chichester Festival Theatre” →

Blog: Tour training

Posted: June 26, 2014July 17, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

tour2 — The Pass It On Team and our tour guides in training were granted special access during building works to start planning the tours.

As you may already know, we are running tours throughout Festival 2014. We are delighted to announce that these will be led by volunteer Youth Theatre members whom we are in the process of training as official tour guides. Our renowned Youth Theatre, led by Dale Rooks, is a huge part of CFT. Here at Pass It On, we like to take full advantage of this pool of talented, enthusiastic and passionate young people and recruit them whenever we can so that we can also provide them with opportunities to increase their skillset.You may remember our fabulous volunteer hard-hat tour guides of last year, Fay and Rob (recent architecture graduates) who are back to help us. As a logical development, the public and group tours we are running from mid-July will be architecture focused and celebrate the truly unique history and design of Chichester Festival Theatre. The whole group has worked really hard using their research to make the architectural jargon understandable – after our training session held last Saturday, our tour guides can now fully explain what a cantilever is, how cement is made (aggregate included) and will be able to tell you all about the original architects, Powell and Moya.

The tours will involve splitting 50 people into four separate groups each led by a different guide. The challenge is fixing a route where we all won’t bump into each other. There’s been lots of walking back and forth, heading up and down several flights of stairs, testing out the new accessible lifts and creeping into as many corners as possible to find the best route whilst showing off our renewed Theatre to its best advantage for everyone. This is whilst keeping the theme of a non-hierarchal space a priority (Find out more about this on one of our tours!).

Continue reading “Tour training” →

Blog: Director’s Decisions

Posted: June 12, 2014July 17, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

First read-through of the scripts with the Young Playwrights, actors and director.

I am delighted to say that we now have three brand new short plays that will be performed in our Out Of The Archive series in the Minerva Theatre in October. The three pieces have been inspired and informed by the work of the Youth Theatre and:

– A 1960s article regarding what you should and should not wear to CFT (see below)

– Press cuttings, reviews and production notes relating to the 1970s production of Chekov’s The Seagull

– Letters written to the young cast of the 1986 production of Jane Eyre

The result is a selection of plays containing very human relationships and feelings that we can all relate to – love, inferiority, and fear – all explored using humour and truth.

Continue reading “Director’s Decisions” →

Blog: Jigsaw Pieces

Posted: May 22, 2014May 23, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Chris_Larkin_5320955393d64 — Actor Chris Larkin has an extensive history with Chichester Festival Theatre

The Pass It On project is reaching a really exciting stage. Several of our different project strands, such as the Archiving and Oral History are slowly coming together, providing us with a range of different material that when combined, create a bigger picture, revealing the hidden histories of Chichester Festival Theatre (perfectly timed for Festival 2014’s ‘Hidden Histories’ Season). Each archive document, each recorded interview, each photograph and written account are like individual jigsaw pieces of a puzzle that has no definitive final image. The rest of this blog post outlines the ways in which some of these pieces are coming together, with snippets from an exclusive interview with current Stevie cast member, Chris Larkin.

We recently took our trained Memory Collectors to a Youth Theatre reunion (featured in the Chichester Observer). Many of the alumni’s stories surrounded the temporary studio space known as The Tent. When I first started working on the project, I had never heard of The Tent – it seemed a mythical creation that only a select few really knew about. Tracking down any information about it proved difficult, and even harder was just trying to find a picture of it.

The wonderful thing about my job is that I get to see all these individual jigsaw pieces the project creates, and start to build them as a whole. I’m pleased to say that for me, The Tent is no longer a mysterious black hole in the history of Chichester Festival Theatre – far from it. Our ever-growing archive (listed by dedicated volunteers) has provided a resource that can be used extensively by other members of the community. Through this, one of our volunteers, Amelia Mlynowska, has been able to undertake a research project for our website, using the archive to draw up individual summaries of the history of The Tent and its gradual transition into the Minerva.

Continue reading “Jigsaw Pieces” →

Blog: Interviewing Artistic Director, John Gale OBE

Posted: May 8, 2014May 19, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

I am part of a group of volunteers involved in oral history interviewing for the Pass It On project. My most recent interviewee was John Gale OBE, who was involved with Chichester Festival Theatre from 1983 and was Artistic Director from 1985 to 1989.

His enthusiasm and affection for the Theatre was typical of our interviewees. They all continue to care for the Theatre and their generous sharing of knowledge and experiences is giving the Pass It On Project an immense wealth of fascinating information.

We met at his house and having set up the recording equipment and tested the sound levels the process began, as usual, with recording the date, place and our names and then asking the interviewee to spell their name, and give the place and date of their birth.

Continue reading “Interviewing Artistic Director, John Gale OBE” →

Blog: Press Cuttings Project

Posted: May 1, 2014May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

NADFAS archive press cuttings — Our NADFAS ladies working hard!

“Very few of us had done any archiving before and I had always thought of it as a rather dry and tedious activity. How wrong can one be?” – Liz Juniper, Heritage Volunteer Representative for the Lavant Valley Decorative and Fine Arts Society

For the last three months, our NADFAS volunteers have been working their way through piles and piles of press cuttings, listing them onto a database in detail so we can gain a clear overview of what press cuttings our archive holds – what productions are reviewed, what news is covered, who was visiting, when and why. This is particularly important for future researchers interested in the Theatre’s history, who will be able to search the database by year, by production and using key names.

Continue reading “Press Cuttings Project” →

Blog: Why Chichester?

Posted: April 25, 2014May 19, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Chichester, Festival Theatre, Cathedral — Artist impression of the Festival Theatre’s place in Chichester – click image for full size

A lot of the work I’ve been doing lately for Pass It On has concentrated on the early years of the Theatre. Founded in the sixties as a theatre for the community, by the community, I like to think that nothing has changed regarding this statement. There is something, for sure, about being a local Cicesterian and feeling tied to the Theatre. This was something that was important to founder, Leslie Evershed-Martin, from the start:

“What else made Chichester the right place for this idea? Naturally, I favoured Chichester because I live there. Few could live in such a city for long without loving its unique atmosphere, and I had always wondered how we could preserve its importance.” The Impossible Theatre (1971, page 9)*.

Continue reading “Why Chichester?” →

Blog: Meet Clarissa and Grace

Posted: March 6, 2014May 19, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

West Sussex Record Office, University of Chichester, volunteers, archive, Chichester Festival Theatre — Find out more about the West Sussex Record Office by clicking on the picture.

Clarissa and Grace are two of our wonderful volunteers currently working in the archive. They are history students from the University of Chichester and as part of their course they were given the chance to take part in a work placement. They decided it would be beneficial to experience history in the workplace and thought the Pass It On project held at the West Sussex Record Office (in partnership with the Festival Theatre) was the perfect opportunity as they wanted to know how an archive works, what is stored and why. Though they are both working on separate tasks, their involvement in the project “is exciting for the both of us. It has also helped us to get to know Chichester better, and although neither of us are from the city, we now feel like part of the community.”

Clarissa: I’ve been working on sorting through and listing the Christmas productions that were put on at Chichester Festival Theatre each year. This goes back to the early 1970s. I have found it interesting to see what shows were staged over the years and sorting through production files has opened my eyes to how much work goes into putting on a show!

Continue reading “Meet Clarissa and Grace” →

Blog: “A White Concrete Mushroom”

Posted: February 20, 2014May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Miracle Theatre, Leslie Evershed Martin, Chichester Festival Theatre, Book — ‘The Miracle Theatre’
Available for purchase from Chichester Festival Theatre (click on picture to follow link)

Writing in 1986, Leslie Evershed-Martin reflected on the Festival Theatre Building; the strengths and weaknesses of its design and the reactions and perceptions people held about it. The below extract comes from his book The Miracle Theatre (1986:p33).

‘Over the years there have been many amusing descriptions applied to the look of the building. Correspondents have vied with one another in their inventiveness and the following are some of the examples:-

– “An enormous home plate in a tight little ball pitch.”

– “A merry-go-round outside and a circus inside.”

– “The roof is like an inverted radio telescope.”

Continue reading ““A White Concrete Mushroom”” →

Blog: Joining the Team

Posted: February 14, 2014May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Heritage Activities, Pass It On, Chichester Festival Theatre — Becky Rae, the new Heritage Activities Trainee

Sadly, this week sees the lovely Rachel leaving her role as Heritage Activities Trainee. Three trainees will be hired across the span of the project; I’m extremely happy to introduce myself as the second.

Although I know I have very big shoes to fill, I’m so excited to be joining the Pass It On team and look forward to working with our fantastic volunteers on a range of projects.

Having lived in Chichester for nearly two decades, I have very happy memories of the Festival Theatre and have even performed in the Minerva. This was for the Shakespeare Schools’ Festival in 2004 (we summarised The Taming Of The Shrew in twenty minutes – I had the pleasure of performing ‘character parts’). Continue reading “Joining the Team” →

Blog: Artists in the Archive

Posted: November 22, 2013May 23, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

artwork produced by Pacso families and the archival material that inspired it — Local artist Rachel Johnston brought together artwork produced by PACSO families and the archival material that inspired it to create this work currently on display around the Theatre Hoardings. Click the picture to see the complete artwork in situ.

Earlier this year I attended a conference called Artists in the Archive; thinking about the possibilities of artistic responses and interpretations to archival material. This is something Pass It On is really interested in exploring further and it was fantastic to see some really exciting examples of this from across the country.

The archives of Chichester Festival Theatre are rich with stories of the past 50 years; the triumphs and challenges of its theatrical life. The overarching narrative is one of overcoming great difficulties and achieving the impossible, indeed the founder; Leslie Evershed-Martin’s two books about the Theatre are called “The Impossible Theatre” and “The Miracle Theatre”. It’s an inspiring story of what creativity and vision can achieve and one that certainly does, and hopefully will continue to, inspire others for years to come. Continue reading “Artists in the Archive” →

Blog: Contemplating Concrete

Posted: October 31, 2013May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

making a concrete hedgehog! — making a concrete hedgehog

Concrete is the single most widely used material in the world and was fundamental to the construction of the Festival Theatre. To explore and share the significance of this material to the Theatre, we ran our very own concrete- making workshop earlier this year.

Prior to starting as the first Heritage Trainee of Pass It On earlier this year, I had never really thought all that much about concrete. I was vaguely aware of concrete constructions nearby; indeed the infamous Tricorn Centre loomed large as a landmark of days out in Portsmouth until its demolition in 2004. Nevertheless, voted by Radio 4 listeners as the most hated building in Britain and described by Prince Charles as “a mildewed lump of elephant droppings”, this didn’t do much to raise my awareness or appreciation of concrete as a building material.

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Blog: Writing Pass It On!

Posted: October 24, 2013May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Chichester Festival Youth Theatre members performing in Pass It On!

I share a long history with Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT). I was part of the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre (CFYT) for 10 years and we performed numerous productions during this time. I acted, sang, danced and played in the band. I took part in carnivals, concerts, street performance and took part in creative workshops about performance poetry, set design and circus skills.

So it felt natural that, after my English Degree, I would gravitate back towards the Theatre. I joined the Young Playwrights Programme and then the Advanced course at CFT which was run in partnership with New Writing South. The course was brilliant, inspiring and covered a wide range of topics. We explored writing dialogue, characters, plots, genres as well as having theatre visits, discussions and visiting writers talk to us. One of my pieces, Occupied (2012), was performed in the Theatre on the Fly, whilst my other short plays, The Knock (2011) and First Visit (2010), were performed in The Minerva Theatre. Continue reading “Writing Pass It On!” →

Blog: Chichester Festival Youth Theatre – inspired by the Archive

Posted: October 17, 2013May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Archive document about the Festival Theatre Cricket Match which has inspired Kates Youth Theatre groups.

As a Youth Theatre Leader at Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, my challenge this term is to encourage a group of 14 and 15 year olds to create some interesting pieces of theatre using historical stimuli – not as easy as it sounds, but certainly a lot of fun!

I run sessions for two Year 10 groups and have chosen two stimuli from the archives: correspondence regarding a charity cricket match between Chichester Festival Theatre and the RSC in 1986 and letters containing information for young people participating in a professional production of Jane Eyre in the same year.

I began by thinking of exercises that would allow Youth Theatre members to create performances based on this particular material. Cricket is an especially difficult topic with which to inspire teenage girls (and some boys). Introductory sessions included creating freeze frames to represent different stages of a cricket match, flowing between each one and moving to the sounds of Soul Limbo – a classic cricket theme. Following this, the freeze frames were combined to create whole group images of a cricket match thinking predominantly about clear body positioning and facial expressions.

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Blog: How we are getting on in the archive

Posted: August 8, 2013May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Our first two groups of archive organisation volunteers. Left Photo clockwise from the top: John, Samphire, Steph, Maggie and Percy. Right Photo clockwise from the top: Rachel, Jackie, Barbara, Christine, Anne and Sue.

Gillian is working with teams of volunteers in the West Sussex Record Office to sort through and list the 1,000 boxes of paper files which constitute 50 years’ worth of potential material for the Chichester Festival Theatre’s archive – the keystone of the Pass It On project. As the first team of volunteers finish their term, Gillian reflects on the initial three months of organising our archive:

It’s the end of a little era. The first two teams to sort and box documents and files belonging to the Chichester Festival Theatre have now completed their time. They have done sterling work and I shall miss them.
We have made excellent progress. We are attempting to separate all the paperwork relating to the history and development of the Theatre from that which is perhaps not so significant and needs only to be kept for a short time. The newly sorted documents will become the new Chichester Festival Theatre archive, to be stored at West Sussex Record Office and will eventually be available for viewing by the public.

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Blog: Why Collect Oral History?

Posted: July 26, 2013May 23, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Photograph of Theatre staff from the Daily Mail 1963

The past is ‘This happened’ and then ‘This happened’ and then ‘This happened’, isn’t it? The past: a series of events, a series of dates even. If we want to make sense of the past we can choose moments from it, try to sort out which moments are important, and link them – this led to this, this led to this, and this led absolutely nowhere (history as a basic theatre plot, if you like).

If we’re ambitious, we might even try to give past events some sort of meaning. Perhaps this event displayed a spirit of innovation; this showed a certain courage and this then revealed a sad timidity.

Much of the data we can gain is from written records. In the case of Chichester Festival Theatre, the records are extensive. There are all the contracts with directors, writers, actors, musicians, designers and the rest – including, of course, architects. And then there are all the theatre programmes and reviews. So there is a lot on the page already.

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Blog: Art Work Reveal

Posted: July 19, 2013May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Artwork, Reveal, Chichester Festival Theatre, Workshops — Pass It On Artwork Reveal celebration at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo by Natasha Rose.

On the 12 July the first public event of the Pass It On project kicked off with a small gathering in the sunshine to celebrate the reveal of a large artwork inspired by Chichester Festival Theatre, displayed on the hoardings around the building.

A couple of blog posts ago Pass It On volunteer, Natasha Rose, wrote about her experience helping with art workshops which took place back in April with families from local charity and Pass It On partner, PACSO (Parent and Carers Support Organisation). Last Friday we were very proud to officially reveal the artwork that had been produced using prints and designs created during these workshops.

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Blog: Word for Word: Chichester Festival Youth Theatre

Posted: July 5, 2013May 8, 2014 | by CFT | Filed under: | Tags:

Word for Word, CFYT, Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, Volunteers — Youth Theatre members pose at the end of their performance of Word For Word

Between January and April of this year, 18 Year 11 Youth Theatre members and I were involved in creating a piece of Verbatim Theatre, a style of theatre where the text is taken directly from interview transcripts. As Youth Theatre intern, I was given the opportunity to run a project of my choosing. I decided to create and direct a piece of Verbatim theatre as it is a style that I had only ever written and thought about in an academic setting, never in any practical way. I asked for volunteers who would be interested in generating and performing such a piece. Continue reading “Word for Word: Chichester Festival Youth Theatre” →

Tag: Chichester Festival Theatre