Chichester Festival Theatre 2022 summer season - first plays confirmed

Mosse’s new play, The Taxidermist’s Daughter, premieres in the Festival Theatre in April 2022, directed by Róisín McBrinn (April 8-30). Alecky Blythe’s Our Generation, a co-production with the National Theatre, will be directed by Daniel Evans, opening the Minerva Theatre season (April 22-May 14).

Festival 2022 will also include Stephen Beresford’s new play The Southbury Child (June 13-25), directed by Nicholas Hytner with a cast led by Alex Jennings, a co-production with The Bridge Theatre, opening at Chichester before its London run.

Meanwhile, this summer’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific transfers to Sadler’s Wells in July 2022. Daniel Evans’s Festival 2021 production will open in Manchester before its London run at Sadler’s Wells, after which it goes on tour.

Artistic director Daniel Evans said: “The prospect of Chichester Festival Theatre’s 60th anniversary season is a truly joyous one. This theatre, built by the community, for the community, has been at the heart of West Sussex cultural life since its inception. It was here, in 1962, that Laurence Olivier established the nucleus of the National Theatre company that opened at the Old Vic the following year; so it’s especially appropriate that, 60 years on, we begin our Minerva season with a co-production with the National. We are thrilled to be introducing Alecky Blythe’s engrossing verbatim work to Chichester audiences with her new play Our Generation.

“And what could be more appropriate for our 60th anniversary curtain raiser in the Festival Theatre than a new play by an internationally successful writer with Chichester in her very bones? Not only has Kate Mosse been intimately connected with CFT since childhood, her thrilling play The Taxidermist’s Daughter is set in historic Chichester itself. We are equally delighted that Róisín McBrinn makes her directorial debut here.”

Executive director Kathy Bourne added: “The importance of forging new partnerships has been given greater impetus by the vicissitudes of the pandemic, so we relish the opportunity for Chichester audiences to see the world premiere of Stephen Beresford’s new play The Southbury Child, which brings Nicholas Hytner and Alex Jennings back to Chichester for the first time since the mid-1980s, in a co-production with The Bridge Theatre.”

“The full Festival 2022 season will be announced next February.”

Tickets for The Taxidermist’s Daughter and Our Generation go on sale this month.

Priority booking for Friends of opens: November 19 (online and booking forms only); November 22 (phone and in person)

General booking opens:

November 26 (online only)

November 29 (phone and in person).

cft.org.uk; 01243 781312