Chichester Festival Theatre

Take a look at the demolition of Admin and the Box Office from 29 October - 14 November all in just under one minute!

Chichester Festival Theatre at Fifty is a limited edition celebration of one of the UK's most important and much-loved theatres in its 50th Anniversary year. Beautifully designed and illustrated with production photographs, press cuttings and previously unpublished backstage photos, this hardback book explores the first 50 years of this vibrant theatre. It is an absorbing story of the people who have contributed to its history, from the local ophthalmologist with a dream to all the great stars of stage and screen, past and present, who have performed on its stage, a list which includes Joan Collins, Derek Jacobi, Patrick Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, Bridget Bardot, Ian McKellen and Imelda Staunton among many others. Written by Kate Mosse (Citadel), international best-selling author, playwright, broadcaster and Chichester resident.

Kate Mosse interviews Toby Stephens after a performance of Private Lives. For Toby Stephens Chichester Festival Theatre runs deep. It was back during the legendary 1964 season that his parents Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, both part of the "nucleus National Theatre Company", appeared at Chichester; Robert had understudied Olivier the year before but now Maggie joined the company. And happily both have returned in the intervening years. And so it was perhaps no surprise that a young Toby Stephens should find his way to Chichester as part of the stage crew in 1987. And now in its fiftieth year, Toby has received widespread acclaim for his Elyot in Private Lives, just as his father did in a West End Production in 1972 opposite his mother, playing Amanda.

Join Philip Hoare, author of the highly regarded Noël Coward: A Biography, as he goes on a biographical journey into Coward's shimmering text to reveal some of the complexity beneath.

For a next generation theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre partnered with the next generation of architects, Assemble. This outstanding team of young designers and builders devised a playhouse able to open up to Oaklands Park or enclose us in new worlds. This is the deconstruction of Theatre on the Fly. More info at www.cft.org.uk/totf

An innovative audio performance exploring the site of Chichester Festival Theatre. Examining the legacy of Leslie Evershed-Martin and the Modernist architects, Powell and Moya, this is an exciting experience.

Recorded on Thursday 23 August in Theatre on the Fly. Playwright Penelope Skinner and Director Tim Hoare in conversation before Fred's Diner.

Recorded on the 6 September 2012 in the Minerva Theatre. Dan Rebellato, playwright and Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London, has published widely on British 20th Century drama and offers insight and context to Absurd Person Singular.

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE 7 - 29 SEPTEMBER 2012 Desire and duty collide in Shakespeare's captivating tragedy of politics, passion and power. Two charismatic leaders, Mark Antony of Rome and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, are caught in an all-encompassing love that threatens the Empire. Rome will do all it can to pull them apart. Or it will destroy them both. Kim Cattrall plays Cleopatra. Theatre includes Private Lives, The Cryptogram and Whose Life is it Anyway? Film includes Meet Monica Velour, The Ghost Writer and Sex and the City 1 and 2. Michael Pennington plays Antony. Credits include The Syndicate, The Master Builder, Collaboration, Taking Sides; The Iron Lady, Judgement Day, Love is My Sin, extensive work with the RSC and his English Shakespeare Company. Janet Suzman's directing credits include the award-winning productions of the Johannesburg Othello, The Free State and Death of a Salesman. Acting credits include Hedda Gabler, Antony and Cleopatra and Dream of the Dog. MORE INFORMATION AT WWW.CFT.ORG.UK

RENEW aims to sustain and improve the unique Grade 2* Festival Theatre, and enhance its significant contribution to the district and county economy. We are working sympathetically with the original design to create a theatre with facilities fit for the 21st century. Find out more at http://www.cft.org.uk/renew

Recorded on 25 July in Theatre on the Fly. Playwright April De Angelis and Director Michael Oakley in conversation before Playhouse Creatures.

For a next generation theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre partnered with the next generation of architects, Assemble. This outstanding team of young designers and builders have devised a playhouse able to open up to Oaklands Park or enclose us in new worlds. The bold design celebrates the theatrical fly tower, which beautifully exposes all the ropes, rails and pulleys that lift and lower scenery, and gives the new theatre both its name and a unique capacity for Chichester Festival Theatre. More info at www.ft.org.uk/totf Music: Joachim de lux -- do fond de l'ambime (reinterpreted by johnny_ripper )

On the brink of World War I, pragmatic Ellie Dunn, her father and her fiancé are invited to a house party at the home of eccentric Captain Shotover by his daughter Hesione Hushabye. The family is soon divided by Ellie's decision to marry for money, not love. As their hearts and minds become inseparably tangled in Ellie's dilemma, Bernard Shaw, master of wit and social commentary, brilliantly debates money and morality, idealism and realism, and with uncanny prescience and comic insight chronicles a society teetering on the threshold of enormous change. Bernard Shaw's plays include Pygmalion, Mrs Warren's Profession, Arms and the Man, Candida, You Never Can Tell, Man and Superman and Major Barbara. Derek Jacobi plays Captain Shotover. Theatre and film includes King Lear, Twelfth Night, My Week with Marilyn, The King's Speech and Gosford Park. Numerous credits at Chichester include Uncle Vanya, Playing the Wife, Hadrian VII, The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Saint Joan. Emma Fielding plays Hesione Hushabye. Theatre credits include The King's Speech, Private Lives, Look Back in Anger and Arcadia. Television includes Cranford and Kidnap and Ransom. Film includes Twenty8K and Fast Girls. Ronald Pickup plays Mazzini Dunn. Theatre credits include Waiting for Godot, Uncle Vanya and Long Day's Journey Into Night. Television and film include Lark Rise to Candleford, Fortunes of War and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Richard Clifford directed Playing the Wife for Chichester in 1995; other credits include directing The School for Scandal and The Game of Love and Chance, and All's Well That Ends Well (Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Washington DC).

Recorded on 15 July in the Festival Theatre. David Suchet in conversation with Director, Joe Harmston,

Recorded in the Festival Theatre on 13 July 2012. David Hare introduces George Bernard Shaw's own 'favourite play'.

Recorded in the Steven Pimlott Building on 9 July 2012. Jonathan Church, Director of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Chichester's Artistic Director, introduces his new production in conversation with Kate Mosse.