The Other Boleyn Girl
By Mike Poulton Based on the novel by Philippa Gregory
Welcome
Welcome
We are delighted to welcome you to the opening production of Festival 2024: the world premiere of The Other Boleyn Girl. Philippa Gregory has won a worldwide following of devoted readers for her vivid historical novels; and what better story can there be to open Justin’s first season, which travels through English history from the Tudors to the present, than this fascinating look at power and sexual politics through the eyes of women at the heart of changing history? Philippa graduated from the University of Sussex where she is now a Fellow: a local link which makes this doubly gratifying. Playwright Mike Poulton began his stage career at Chichester with adaptations of Turgenev’s Fortune’s Fool and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya – both winners of Tony Awards on Broadway – and went on to give us several more notable adaptations, so it’s a great pleasure to welcome him back. Director Lucy Bailey also returns to Chichester for her debut in the Festival Theatre. She has assembled a superb ensemble company, alongside a hugely experienced creative team. We hope you’ll make time to explore our free foyer exhibition, Dressing the Tudors, showcasing costumes from the CFT Archive on display for the first time, alongside others from the National Theatre and elsewhere (you can also book a special tour with the curator to delve deeper). And Philippa Gregory herself will be here for an in-depth conversation about her novel on 30 April. We’ll shortly open the Minerva Theatre season with another world premiere, Laura Lomas’s The House Party which spins Strindberg’s Miss Julie into fresh life for today’s generation. Following The Other Boleyn Girl into the Festival Theatre is the richly captivating Coram Boy; read more about it overleaf, as well as Justin’s own first production, Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. We hope you’ll be able to join us again soon, and that you enjoy today’s performance.
Justin Audibert Artistic Director
Kathy Bourne Executive Director
Kathy Bourne and Justin Audibert Photograph by Peter Flude
What if he took him? What if he saved your baby and took him to Coram Hospital?
Coram Boy Festival Theatre 24 May – 15 June Following The Other Boleyn Girl into the Festival Theatre is Coram Boy by Helen Edmundson, based on the novel by Jamila Gavin. It tells a captivating and haunting tale of the dark side of 18th century society, but with a happy ending. Anyone who’s visited The Foundling Hospital in London, with its moving history of providing sanctuary for babies whose mothers were unable to care for them, will recognise Coram Boy’s message of hope and salvation, encapsulated in its use of wonderful music throughout, particularly Handel. Director Anna Ledwich, formerly Co-Artistic Director of Theatre on the Fly, as well as our previous Writer in Residence (The Butterfly Lion, Pinocchio), says: ‘I think it’s such a great choice for the Festival Theatre stage. It spans eight years from 1742 to 1750, a really exciting period of time. You have lost children, young love, betrayal, villains, angels, coincidences, reconciliations. We’re going to have a wonderfully large company of actors; music plays a huge role too.
‘It’s epic and rich and theatrical.’
I’m afraid you’re a born fibber, en’t you? You’re speaking to the owner. This is my room. You’re standing in my house.
The Caretaker Minerva Theatre 8 June – 13 July Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker established the arrival of one of the 20th century’s most distinctive and seminal voices, and still feels incredibly fresh and alive today. Offering a feast of acting skills and three memorable characters, we’re delighted that the great Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars, Six Characters in Search of an Author CFT, Faith Healer Almeida and Broadway) is returning to Chichester after 15 years, alongside Adam Gillen (Amadeus National Theatre, ITV’s Benidorm) and Jack Riddiford (Romeo and Juliet Almeida Theatre, Jerusalem West End). Justin Audibert, CFT’s Artistic Director, is at the helm. ‘This is a play as taut and electrifying and claustrophobic as it was when it premiered in 1960. It’s a play about people on the edge of society. Davies, Aston and Mick are all characters who are struggling to find their place in the world, and in this room they battle it out for supremacy against each other.
‘It’s exciting, challenging, funny and intense.’
Opening doors Chichester Festival Theatre has welcomed four early career individuals and one company to its pilot Artists Development Programme: a part-time, 10-month programme intended to develop their skills, make vital connections with other industry professionals, and enable them to deliver a creative project that will add to their emerging portfolio of work. Led by CFT’s Artistic Director Justin Audibert and Creative Associate Sophie Hobson, the programme includes a series of workshops and a focused period of research and development. ‘A lot of development programmes come at a cost, so this is unbelievably good on so many levels,’ says Shani Kantor, a Brighton-based dance and movement artist who’s exploring the intersection of queerness and working class experience through jazz. ‘I feel extremely lucky to have the support not only of a big institution and their resources, but also of a network of artists who are in a similar position, and an element of financial support.’ Ben Grant, a multidisciplinary artist who’s developing his first full-length solo show, a semi-autobiographical exploration of Mixed-Race identity through a Pop Culture lens, observes: ‘I came into this wanting to refine my skills as a writer and performer; and mentorship for me is really valuable – learning from people who have such different disciplines, such as marketing and fundraising.’ Former Youth Theatre member Alice O’Hanlon, a queer actress, writer and director who’s creating a piece of theatre inspired by her Dad’s journey with early onset Alzheimer’s disease,
adds: ‘I’ve got such a special connection to Chichester; so this opportunity, plus the fact that CFT has such a good relationship with their dementia community, seemed to me the perfect place to develop what I wanted to do.’ Maddie Bell and Hollie Jameson-Clarke are members of the feminist comedy group OnTheNose (along with Esther Dracott and Emily Benucci), working on a new parody musical. ‘We all graduated from Chichester University in October so it’s been really nice to have the city remain our creative home,’ says Maddie, while Hollie points to the lasting connections the programme is designed to engender: ‘You’ll always have a network of people to come back to,
Artists Development Programme participants with Sophie Hobson and Justin Audibert
which really appealed. I think we’re all going to be so much more developed and full of understanding of what we want our projects to be, but also who we are as performers, creators, writers and directors.’ The participants receive a grant to enable them to devote adequate time to the programme: an important factor since, Alice says, ‘We are all juggling other jobs because we have to pay our rent and eat. This is buying us the time to be creative which is a really rare opportunity.’ Phoebe Hyder, who’s employing visual storytelling, puppetry and multidisciplinary theatre magic to create her solo piece about flyfishing, trees and grief, points out: ‘I’ve been a freelance practitioner of the Festival
Theatre for about three years, and felt a real need of investment as a creative; so [the main advantage] is not even financial investment, it’s helping careers grow; investing in people who are local, who are building new connections with Chichester Festival Theatre which is invaluable and what people in our position need. One of CFT’s funders described what they do as opening doors; and that kind of summarises this. It’s empowering.’
The Artists Development Programme is kindly supported by the Dora Green Educational Trust and Garrick Charitable Trust.
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- Block & Cleaver Butchers - SØDT Danish Bakery - Tempus Cured Meats - Charlie’s Smokehouse - Cadd Oxshott Pizza - Hallgate Farm Eggs
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The Other Boleyn Girl
By Mike Poulton Based on the novel by Philippa Gregory
The Boleyn / Howard family The Boleyns were a prominent family in the Tudor period. Hever Castle in Kent was the family seat and childhood home of Anne, Mary and George. Their father, Thomas Boleyn, was a courtier and diplomat, and their mother, Elizabeth, the sister of Thomas Howard.
Thomas Boleyn c.1477 – 1539
The Howards were an eminent family whose head was the Duke of Norfolk. As the top ranking non-royal duke, and with immense wealth sufficient to fund a private army, the 3rd Duke was the most powerful and influential man in the country after Cardinal Wolsey. Arundel Castle in West Sussex has been the seat of the Dukes of Norfolk for more than 850 years.
Mary Boleyn c.1499 – 1543
Two of Henry VIII’s wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, were first cousins: Anne’s mother and Catherine’s father being the children of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Despite their close family ties, the two women never met. However, they are joined by a gruesome bond – both were executed by the King. Katherine of Aragon 1485 – 1536
Anne Boleyn c.1500/07 – 1536
Mary I 1516 – 1558
Elizabeth I 1533 – 1603
Thomas Howard 2nd Duke of Norfolk 1443 – 1524
Elizabeth Tilney 1445 – 1497
Elizabeth Howard c.1480 – 1538
Thomas Howard 3rd Duke of Norfolk 1473 – 1554
Edmund Howard c.1478 – 1539
Joyce Culpeper c.1480 – 1528
Catherine Howard c.1521 – 1542
Catherine Parr 1512 – 1548
George Boleyn c.1504 – 1536
Wives of Henry VIII
Jane Seymour 1509 – 1537 Edward VI 1537 – 1553
Anne of Cleves 1515 – 1557
Creating of
Freya Mavor Lucy Bailey
the world of the Boleyns ‘Anne Boleyn’s rooms in Greenwich Palace looked over the tilt yard, where the jousting took place,’ says Joanna Parker, designer of The Other Boleyn Girl, ‘and survival was completely in the balance, every day.’ It’s the ever-present sense of danger that lends Mary Boleyn’s story aspects of a thriller, particularly for the many people who are unaware of her history – and that initially included novelist Philippa Gregory herself. ‘I was doing some research into the Tudor navy and I came across Henry VIII launching a ship called Mary Boleyn. And I thought, I’ve never heard of Mary Boleyn; how extraordinary,’ Philippa says. ‘I could only find a couple of paragraphs about her as Anne’s lady-in-waiting in the footnotes of history books, but very much as an aside.’ ‘This story is about the three siblings – Mary, Anne and George Boleyn – who start with everything to play for, and try to have some control over their lives,’ says director Lucy Bailey. ‘In close-up it’s a chamber piece about the ruthless ambition of the Boleyn/Howard family,’ writer Mike Poulton observes. ‘Pull back the focus, and unde r the spotlight is King Henry VIII himself. The game is to get as close to Henry as possible because the nearer one gets, the firmer the grip on the levers of power of whichever noble family wins his favour. But, as the poet Thomas Wyatt wrote: ‘Circa Regna Tonat – around the throne the thunder rolls.” ‘Women were used for a specific purpose: to make political marriages, which were alliances of wealth, land and power,’
Lucy Bailey continues. ‘Their husbands were chosen by their parents and the King. This marriage machine had both women and men in its grip – if you fell foul of it, you could be cast out or severely punished. All the characters in the play are victims of this ethos and suffer for it. ‘Both Mary and Anne try to find routes through that by seeking independence from their controlling families: Anne by becoming politically powerful herself, and Mary completely the opposite, by rejecting their values, and opting out of court life.’ ‘In a way, Mary and Anne are emblematic of the situation women found themselves in,’ Philippa Gregory points out. ‘In a patriarchy where a woman can only survive by being the prettiest, or the most sexually attractive, not for what they can do or their opportunities, that’s when you get some of the most spiteful forms of rivalry. What we’re talking about here is not just one woman’s ambition, or her sister’s failure to attract or keep the King; it’s a family business.’ Set and costume design, movement and music are all key to evoking this compelling but savage world, with copious historical research as the starting point. Visually, it’s a world that’s familiar: ‘Everyone’s got an idea of what Henry and Anne looked like,’ Joanna Parker says. ‘I remember drawing the six wives in my history book at school, and Katherine of Aragon’s Spanish gabled hat: I wish someone had explained that she wore that because it drew her hair back off her face, which was essential because she was
Catholic. Anne was quite radical because she had spent time in the fashionable French court, and her headdress showed her hair. ‘Lots of interesting designers – Gaultier, Westwood, McQueen – have quoted from the Tudors in their designs, so I’m also looking at how other people have referenced the period. I’m using a lot of net and transparency in quite light fabrics but I’m very keen on the Tudor silhouette.’ But creating the design isn’t entirely tied to history books: it is also combined with an aesthetic unique to the show. ‘You want to find an authentic spirit as opposed to
Orlando Gough and the company
an idea of exactly what you think people did.’ says Lucy Bailey. ‘You’ve got to be led by the play and the play is telling you everything.’ Joanna Parker agrees. ‘Philippa and Mike have written a version of what the events were, so authenticity comes through the text. We’re in the theatre, telling a story. So it’s a balance. Lucy is someone who tends to guide the process towards a central spatial metaphor that can hold the dramaturgy.’ ‘The Tudors were famous for their love of sport, much of it extremely violent: the jousting, the bear-baiting, the cock-fighting,
the deer-hunting,’ Lucy Bailey explains. ‘We wanted to create an arena where you have to compete or you die. Life as a blood sport – one slip and you are trampled on. As Joanna says, it’s a space for the sport of the court in every sense.’ Movement Director Ayse Tashkiran is also intent on finding ‘a very direct way into the heart of what I think the period is’. She is responsible not only for the dances and the ritual set pieces such as the coronation and religious ceremonies, but ‘the character journeys as well, because I think this play really has the female body at the centre of it,
including the pregnancies and births. ‘Almost the biggest insight I’ve had into the Renaissance dances of the period is that they may have simple steps but the patterns we are drawing on the earth are really intricate and exposing. In our play the dances are a metaphor for the court’s power structures and game playing. If you get a step wrong or you deviate, you are going to be noticed. ‘It’s also an opportunity for touch. Dance historians and anthropologists refer to the sexual rituals that are at play – you start with one partner, maybe your spouse
or betrothed, then you suddenly find yourself with a new partner, and you progress round the dance by visiting every other male or female in the circle.’ Ayse stresses that ‘The collaboration between the creative team is absolutely fundamental. I don’t look at the actors without imagining their costumes. And having live musicians in rehearsals and on stage is a very special thing – it’s how the court would have operated. The musicians would have been watching how the dance was shaping and they would be following as well as leading, so that living connection between the dancers and musicians is
Above: Lucy Bailey Mike Poulton Below: Freya Mavor Osa Audu
symbiotic. Music and movement go hand in glove.’ Composer Orlando Gough agrees. ‘Unquestionably we want to summon up the 16th century by at least referring to music from the period. The music will also be trying to deal with the thriller aspect and the idea of ratcheting up the tension; we’ll be working with the sound designer Beth Duke to create a disorientating, ominous world of machinations. ‘In 1520 we were going into an absolute golden age of English music which included Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Dowland,’ he reflects. ‘They wrote mainly religious
Lucy Phelps James Corrigan
music but also some very lovely secular music. The composers switched between genres; most of the secular music was probably for dancing – a galliard or pavane. The religious music was polyphonic in a very subtle way and very sophisticated and difficult to perform. ‘Then there’s the more intimate music. There are two folk songs I’ve got very fascinated by and I think are going to weave their way through: one beautiful song called ‘Western Wind’ which only has one verse and is very mysterious, but was first written down in about 1520; I associate it with Mary Boleyn. Then there’s ‘Let No Man Steal Your
Thyme’ – meaning I think ‘let no man steal your purity’ – which I associate with Anne. ‘It’s very much about stringed instruments: lute, mandolin, spinet, violin, the dombra (a beautiful stringed instrument rather like a mandolin) as well as acoustic and electric guitar. A real cauldron of sound.’ ‘The Tudor court centred on displays of wealth, pleasure, and extravagant show,’ Mike Poulton says. ‘The way the King moves, his clothes, armour, jewels, his stance, his music and dancing, the court’s conspicuous consumption, are all designed to impress the rival monarchs of Europe, particularly the Emperor and the King of France. Or is it all
Above: Philippa Gregory Below: Freya Mavor Ayse Tashkiran Lucy Bailey
to boost the confidence of Henry himself? ‘Henry knows many of his subjects have better claims than his to England’s throne. His father, from illegitimate stock himself, had no real claim to it at all. Is the King’s inability to father a legitimate male heir God’s punishment for his manifold sins and wickedness? The handsome 18 year old prince whose reign began with assurances
The company
of power and glory has resulted in failure after failure: as a soldier, as a diplomat, and worst of all, in his own eyes, as a man. He has destroyed his loyal friends and advisers, he’s on the point of destroying the English Church, the music and dance that define his court are rapidly becoming a dance of death. And still his courtiers, like moths to the flame drive themselves on – closer and closer
to the seat of power.’ ‘For me, the character of Mary Boleyn is a golden thread through a very dark world,’ Lucy Bailey says. ‘It’s a world driven by ruthless ambition and underpinned by fear with people selfishly pursuing certain objectives at the expense of others. But with Mary you get a discovery of other values that can allow you to live – a proper sense
of love and respect for your fellow human. Mary is the quiet radical.’ Lucinda Morrison is CFT's Head of Press & Publications
The Tudors The legacy of a dynasty of larger-than-life personalities
Every English child knows something about Henry VIII and his six wives, Bloody Mary and the Virgin Queen. They are the first of what we might today describe as ‘celebrities’, with whom we are endlessly fascinated and whom we both idealise and identify with, partly because we know so much about their public and private lives – even their sex lives. For the first time in English history, we have a strong cast of female protagonists: Mary I, Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, not to mention Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and their four successors. Together, the Tudors represent a compelling family drama of powerful men and women, passion and betrayal, jealous rivalries and resentments played out over three generations.
We know a great deal of how they lived: we can visit their homes, walk in their footsteps, read their letters, see their treasures. Thanks to the brilliant court painter Hans Holbein the Younger, we can look the Tudor monarchs and their courtiers in the eye: we can see them as real people, their lines and wrinkles, haunted gazes, determined stares. Despite living 500 years ago, the essential humanity of the Tudors translates across the centuries. We also know a great deal of how they lived: we can visit their homes, walk in their footsteps, read their letters, see their treasures. At Hampton Court Palace, built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Henry VIII, we can step through
Above left: Henry VIII by workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger, c.1547 Above right: The Ermine Portrait of Elizabeth I, c.1585, artist uncertain
the Great Hall where feasts and entertainments were held, gaze at Henry’s magnificent Abraham tapestries, and glimpse the chamber pot that was excavated from his Privy Garden. At Hever Castle, the Boleyns’ home in Kent, we can admire Anne’s Book of Hours inscribed with her own signature. And at the Tower of London, we can marvel at the size of Henry’s suit of armour, pause at the site of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard’s executions on Tower Green, and see the desperate graffiti etched into the Tower walls by the Tudors’ prisoners. Tudor music, literature and drama remain at the heart of cultural life today. Thomas Tallis’ masterpiece ‘Spem in Alium’, composed in 1570, is still often performed, as are the great liturgical compositions of William Byrd and John Dowland. The Tudors heavily influenced the English language
as we know it. Henry VIII authorised a bible in English, based on the translation by William Tyndale, and this, together with the genius of men such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and Edmund Spenser, transformed the written and spoken word. Printing and the rise in literacy established a print culture and a reading public – and so emerged the beginnings of an English literary canon. Tudor phrases survive, too: ‘square meal’, ‘a cut above the rest’, ‘let your hair down’, ‘sleep tight’, ‘fancy free’, ‘more fool you’, ‘vanish into thin air’, ‘wear your heart on your sleeve’.
The Tudors developed a bureaucracy and administration that now underpins the modern state.
The Tudor monarchy also saw the creation or transformation of institutions that remain at the heart of English society today. The most obvious example is the Church of England and the role of the monarch as supreme head (or governor), a title that the King retains to this day. Perhaps ironically, English monarchs also bear the title ‘Defender of the Faith’, a designation first awarded to Henry VIII by the pope after the King wrote against the Protestant Martin Luther. When Henry broke with Rome, he also proclaimed the sovereignty of the realm, thereby articulating a key element of what became English national identity. Parliament was also transformed from an occasional court summoned by the monarch to grant funds and offer advice, to an institution of primary political importance whose statutes bound the King and his subjects. The Tudors developed a bureaucracy and administration that now underpins the modern state. In 1538, a compulsory register of births, marriages and deaths was established in every parish across England. Elizabeth I oversaw the beginnings of
a national welfare system when, in 1601, the Poor Law required each parish to provide for the ‘lame, impotent, old and blind’. The office of principal secretary emerged during Henry’s reign, which was occupied by individuals such as Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell and, during Elizabeth’s reign, by William Cecil, Lord Burghley. The principal secretary was a key position at the heart of government whose staff occupied positions that later became departments of state. Henry also ordered the creation of the first national postal service for royal mail. And a fledgling secret service was created under Elizabeth, as Francis Walsingham’s web of informers stretched throughout England and across the Channel. Henry VIII’s investment in a fleet of warships, designed specifically to carry heavy guns, laid the foundation for a modern navy and led to England’s development as a maritime nation and naval power that was to dominate the seas for the next 300 years. Increasingly during the Tudor period, England began to assert itself on the world stage, and a spirit of discovery and
Above left: Anne Boleyn c.1550, Hever Castle Above right: Mary Boleyn c.1630, attributed to Remigius van Leemput, Royal Collection
exploration came to define the 16th century. Sir John Hawkins, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh led voyages to search for new territories, wealth and trade routes, while Sir Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and claim England’s first overseas colonies. Elizabethan explorers were the founders of England’s international trading empire, which stretched to North Africa, Persia, the Middle East, Java, India, the Philippines and China. The development of trade led to the arrival of new foods in England, many of which form an important part of our diet today: apricots, bananas, figs, gooseberries, peaches, pineapples and pomegranates; cauliflower, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, sprouts and chilli; not to mention chocolate, and, of course, tobacco. Many Tudor houses survive with their characteristic half-timber exteriors, stained glass and wooden beams, a design that continues to inspire present-day architects. The separation of rooms with specific functions and bespoke furnishings such as wallpaper, carpets and upholstered
furniture is a Tudor-era development – as was the first flushing toilet. Sir John Harington invented the flushing mechanism and installed it for Queen Elizabeth, his godmother, at Richmond Palace. He proclaimed his invention ‘would make unsavoury places sweet, noisome places wholesome and filthy places cleanly’.
Anne Boleyn, more than any of Henry VIII’s wives, has caught the public imagination – be it as saint, sorceress or sinner. We continue to learn new things about the Tudors. Mary should be thought of less as ‘Bloody Mary’ than as a political pioneer, the first woman to wear the crown of England and who showed that women could rule with all the power of kings. Elizabeth’s reputation is beginning to turn the other way: less an unimpeachable ‘Good Queen Bess’ than a reckless
monarch whose refusal to marry (perhaps understandably, given her mother’s fate) and name a successor ultimately led to the demise of the Tudor dynasty and the accession of a Scottish king to the English throne. Anne Boleyn, more than any of Henry VIII’s wives, has caught the public imagination – be it as saint, sorceress or sinner. Debates about her life, fall, reputation and significance have exercised a magnetic pull for historians. She has been depicted in books, on stage and screen, such as Geneviève Bujold in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and Charlotte Rampling in Henry VIII and his Six Wives (1972); in the television series Wolf Hall, based on Hilary Mantel’s novels, featuring Claire Foy’s Anne as part of an ambitious and social-climbing family (also in Mike Poulton’s adaptation
Company The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover, 1520 British School, Royal Collection
for the stage); and, of course, Philippa Gregory’s novel The Other Boleyn Girl. Donizetti’s tragic opera, Anna Bolena has been performed by Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, among others; the stage musical, Six, has won an international following for its recreation of the six wives as a 21st century pop group; while historians from Antonia Fraser to Alison Weir and David Starkey have examined her life.
The Tudors lie at the heart of the English national myth, and Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are the poster boy and girl representing nationhood and empire.
The Tudors lie at the heart of the English national myth, and Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are the poster boy and girl representing nationhood and empire. Henry’s break with Rome saw the emergence of a formative national sovereignty as England was, for the first time, separated from Europe and became an independent nation-state free from the authority of any foreign potentate. English statute became binding and the English Parliament was sovereign. The Protestantism of the Church of England continued to shape English and, later, British identity for centuries to come. Indeed, English Euroscepticism began with the Protestant Reformation, and perhaps Henry VIII himself was the original Brexiteer. As the preface to the 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals declared, ‘this realm of England is an empire’ (with a monarch who could
for the first time claim an imperial identity and be addressed as ‘His Majesty’), and the Act of Supremacy repealed any ‘usage, custom, foreign laws, foreign authority’. Certainly, the Tudors helped to establish in English (and British) minds a picture of a separate and sovereign island nation, which still resonates today, even if not everyone agrees exactly what that stands for. Anna Whitelock is a historian, author and broadcaster.
The Other Boleyn Girl By Mike Poulton Based on the novel by Philippa Gregory
Cast (in order of speaking) Mary Boleyn Anne Boleyn George Boleyn Francis Weston William Carey / Edward Seymour Harry Percy / Tom Seymour Jane Parker, later Jane Boleyn Queen Katherine of Aragón / Midwife William Stafford Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk Lady Elizabeth Boleyn Thomas Boleyn Cardinal Wolsey / Thomas Cromwell Mark Smeaton Jane Seymour / Serving Woman King Henry VIII Musician Musician
Lucy Phelps Freya Mavor James Corrigan Peter Losasso Jacob Ifan Osa Audu Lily Nichol Kemi-Bo Jacobs Oscar Batterham Andrew Woodall Alex Kingston Ben Jones Roger Ringrose Nitai Levi Rosalind Lailey James Atherton Chris Green Sarah Harrison
The action of the play takes place chiefly at Henry VIII’s court in London and at Hever Castle, the Boleyns’ family seat in Kent, between 1523 and 1536. There will be one interval of 20 minutes.
World premiere performance of The Other Boleyn Girl at Chichester Festival Theatre, 19 April 2024.
Director Designer Lighting Designer Composer Sound Designer Video Designer Movement Director Fight Director Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Designer Musical Director Casting Director
Lucy Bailey Joanna Parker Chris Davey Orlando Gough Beth Duke Dick Straker Ayse Tashkiran Kate Waters Susanna Peretz Chris Green Ginny Schiller CDG
Voice and Dialect Coach Assistant Director
Edda Sharpe Lata Nobes
Production Manager Costume Supervisor Props Supervisor
Kate West Caroline Hughes Sharon Foley
Company Stage Manager Deputy Stage Manager Assistant Stage Managers
Rebecca James Olivia Roberts Isobel Eagle-Wilsher Daisy Jones
Production credits: Set constructed and painted by Miraculous Engineering; Production Carpenter Tom Humphrey; Flooring fitted by J Brown Flooring Ltd; Lino printing by Rutters UK; Lighting hires supplied by White Light; Production Video Engineer and Programmer Caitlyn Russell; Video equipment supplied by Stage Sound Services; Costumes created by Elspeth Threadgold, Alison Kirkpatrick and Sallyann Dicksee; Costume hires supplied by Angels Costumes and RSC Costume Hire; Props by CFT Props Workshop, Taylor & Foley PropMakers, Jenny Binns; Transport by Paul Mathew Transport and EJS; Rehearsal Room London Welsh Centre.
Rehearsal photographs Stephen Cummiskey, Craig Sugden Production photographs Stephen Cummiskey Programme consultant Fiona Richards Programme design Davina Chung Cover image Bob King Creative, photograph Seamus Ryan With special thanks to The Playwrights Fund for their support of the research and development of The Other Boleyn Girl: Deborah Alun-Jones, Robin and Joan Alvarez, George W. Cameron OBE and Madeleine Cameron, Clive and Frances Coward, Mrs Veronica J Dukes, Melanie Edge, Sir Vernon Ellis, Val and Richard Evans, Simon and Luci Eyers, Sandy and Mark Foster, Jonathan and Clare Lubran, and Mrs Denise Patterson DL. Supported by The Other Boleyn Girl Patrons and Supporters Circle: Ben-Levi Family, Philip Berry, Rosalind Bowen, Patrick and Maggie Burgess, Steve and Sheila Evans, Elaine Leaver, Elizabeth Miles, David Shalit MBE and Sophie Shalit, Patricia Sloane, Howard M Thompson, and all those who wish to remain anonymous.
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Cast Biographies James Atherton King Henry VIII Previously at Chichester, Kinsky in Wallenstein (Minerva Theatre). Theatre includes Bob in Rita, Sue and Bob Too (Out of Joint/Royal Court & UK tour); Vincent in Crocodiles (Royal Exchange Manchester); Tom Morgan in Treasure Island (Theatre Royal Haymarket). Television includes Van der Valk, The Lazarus Project, Hapless, Sanditon, Porters series 1 & 2, Ackley Bridge series 3, The Jewish Enquirer, Krypton 2, Vera, Babs, Midsomer Murders, George Gently,Joe Maddison’s War, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks. Films include Slammer and the short Paper Boy. Osa Audu Harry Percy / Tom Seymour Credits while training include Henry in Frankenstein, Simeonov-Pishchik in The Cherry Orchard, Estragon in Waiting for Freya Mavor
Godot, Emil in Wild Cherries, Gonzalo in The Tempest, Heartfree in The Provoked Wife, Clytemnestra/Aegisthus in The Libation Bearers, Romeo/Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. This is his professional stage debut. Films include Teach Me How and Medicine. Trained at RADA. Oscar Batterham William Stafford Theatre includes Tim in Noises Off (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Chorus Leader in The Egyptians (Gulbenkian Theatre); All’s Well That Ends Well, Earl Rivers in Richard III (RSC); Roger in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (Aldwych Theatre); Elder Thomas in The Whale, Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Gontran in The One That Got Away (Theatre Royal Bath); King Pelasgos in The Suppliant Women (Young Vic/UK tour); Edward in Skylight (Theatr Clwyd); title role in Stella (Brighton Theatre Royal/LIFT); John Talbot/Son Who Has Killed His Father
in The Wars of the Roses (Rose Theatre). Television includes Truelove, Obsession, A Spy Among Friends. Trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. James Corrigan George Boleyn Theatre includes Greg in Lyonesse (Harold Pinter Theatre); Bob Acres in Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre); Ralph in White Noise (Bridge Theatre); Edmund in King Lear (Duke of York’s); Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, Aufidius in Coriolanus, Agrippa in Antony and Cleopatra, Palamon in Two Noble Kinsmen, Vincenzo in The Seven Acts of Mercy, John Darling in Wendy and Peter Pan, Roderigo in Othello, Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice, Romeo in Shakespeare’s Birthday (RSC); Winner in Monologue Slam UK (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Sandy Tyrell in Hay Fever (Theatre Royal Bath & Australia); Sam in The Big Meal (Theatre Royal Bath). Television includes Grace (series 3 & 4), Time (series 2), My Lady Jane, CB Strike, Lucy Phelps
This England, This is Going to Hurt, Manhunt, Temple, The Tempest. Radio includes Mansfield Park. Films include Midas Man, This Nan’s Life, Schools Out Forever and the shorts Small Talk, The Long Walk Home, The Lost Scot and Fred, Forever. Chris Green Musician and Musical Director Chris Green has worked in a variety of musical genres including folk, theatre and early music. He is a regular musician at Shakespeare’s Globe and was also one of the musicians on BBC’s Poldark, appearing in series 1 and 2. He also writes and composes, having adapted The Wind in the Willows (2017) for GreenMatthews, his modern-day balladeer duo (with Sophie Matthews), as well as A Christmas Carol: In Concert (2018). His works also include a new live score for the 1922 silent film Nosferatu commissioned by English Heritage. He has recently released his first solo album Switched-On Playford, which fuses
17th-century dance music with electronica, using a blend of early instruments, synths and loops. chrisgreenmusic.co.uk Sarah Harrison Musician Sarah studied violin at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, gaining an AGSM after which she travelled widely researching the music of many cultures. She has since worked as a freelance violinist specialising in Hotclub Jazz and several world music Alex Kingston
styles. She also sings and plays Russian Domra. She has worked with many diverse groups including Django Bates Powder Room Collapse, Delightful Precipice, and Lumiere and Son Theatre company. She was multi instrumentalist in Fascinating Aida’s show Barefaced Chic, vocalist and violinist with world music ensemble Orbestra, worked with Teddy Peiro and his Tango Five, Marianne Olyvver Gypsy Orchestra, Charanga Rivera and Piccadilly Dance Orchestra and led the Covent Garden String Quartet. She was a regular
musician at the National Theatre, and recently performed and helped devise the music for the Beautiful World Cabaret with Janie Dee at the Union Theatre. She performs and tours regularly with Russian accordionist and singer Igor Outkine. Together they form Mazaika Duo and have performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, three runs at Edinburgh Fringe Festival and summer festivals including Latitude, Glastonbury, Broadstairs Folk Week. They have been ‘invited artists’ Andrew Woodall
at several European street music festivals including Neuchatel Switzerland and Ferrara Italy. Cabaret and Burlesque shows include Black Cat Cabaret at Café de Paris, Flash Monkey, Yes Yes Yes, Dusty Limits Late Night Cabaret at the Bongo Club, Madame Jojo’s and Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, The Vortex Jazz Club and The Green Note. They performed in Nitin Sawhney/Akram Kahn’s iTMOi at Sadlers Wells in 2012.
Jacob Ifan William Carey / Edward Seymour Theatre includes Right Where We Left Off (Chapter Arts Centre); A Tale of Two Cities (Royal & Derngate, Northampton). Television includes SAS Rogue Heroes (series 1 & 2), A Discovery of Witches (series 2 & 3), Tree on a Hill/Pren ar y Bryn, The Accident, Bang (series 1 & 2), Cuffs. Radio includes The Medici. Films include I’ll Find You. Trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Kemi-Bo Jacobs Queen Katherine of Aragón / Midwife Theatre includes Ginnie in The Ocean at the End of the Lane (NT national tour & West End); Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, Thaisa in Pericles (RSC); Dr Gray in Wild East (Young Vic); Thea in Hedda Gabler (Salisbury Playhouse); The Sweet Science of Bruising (Southwark Playhouse); Emma in Betrayal (Derby); Ann in All My Sons (Manchester Royal Exchange/national tour). Television includes The Great, Dark Crystal, The Letter for the King, McMafia, Lucy Phelps Jacob Ifan
Delicious, Thirteen, Lewis, The Honourable Woman, Doctor Who. Radio/audio includes Minister of Chance, The Morpurgo Tales – The Taming of the Shrew. Films include A Million Days, London Has Fallen. Trained at LAMDA. Ben Jones Thomas Boleyn Theatre includes Adrian in The Tempest (Ustinov Theatre Bath); Wolf in Blue & The Magic Web (TrueStory/ACCA); Lanyon/ Carew in Jekyll & Hyde (Rose Theatre); Messala in Ben Hur (Tricycle Theatre); William Siding in And Then the Dark (New Wolsey Theatre); Julian in Communicating Doors (national tour); Tom in First Person Shooter (Birmingham Rep); Pito in The Murder Game (King’s Head); Piers in The Pretender Agenda (New Players Theatre); Adam in Time of My Life (Royal & Derngate Northampton); Shah Jahan in Taj (Riverside Studios); Rene in Lala’s Big Day (Soho Theatre); Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, Athos/Richelieu in The Three Musketeers
(Common Players); Irfan in A Dark River (Big Picture Company); Ferdinand/Cortes in The Bone Room (Young Vic). Television includes EastEnders, Tell Me Everything, Murder in Provence, I Live with Models, Casualty, Drifters, Borgia, Quarks, Holby City, My Family, Moving Wallpaper, Echo Beach, Spooks, Doctors, Keen Eddie, Longitude. Audio and Radio includes Cold Enough for Snow (The Rosenthals), Doctor Who: The Chaos Pool. Films include the shorts Perfect State, The Box. Alex Kingston Lady Elizabeth Boleyn Theatre includes Prospero in The Tempest, Emma in Curse of the Starving Class, Cordelia in King Lear, Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Jaquenetta in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Grace in The Bright and Bold Design (RSC); Dr Stockmann in An Enemy of the People (Nottingham Playhouse); Sherri in Admissions (Trafalgar Theatre); Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (Manchester/ New York); Lady Milford in Luise Miller Oscar Batterham Roger Ringrose Osa Audu
(Donmar Warehouse); Nurse Rachet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Garrick Theatre); Ellida Wangel in The Lady from the Sea (Bridewell Theatre); Desdemona in Othello, Dol Common in The Alchemist, Mad Ophelia in Travelling Players, Pam in Saved, Calpurnia in Julius Caesar (Birmingham Rep); Dolores in Bad Blood (Gate Theatre); Emma in Darwin’s Flood (Bush Theatre); Fraulein Muller in The Tutor (Old Vic); Marjorie Pinchwife in The Country Wife, Hippolyta in ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Dukes Playhouse); Titania/Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sheffield Crucible); Nasasya Filipovna in The Idiot (Contact Manchester); Cecily/Johanna in Morning and Evening (Hampstead Theatre); Diana Lake in French Without Tears (Leicester Haymarket). Television includes Frankenstein, A Discovery of Witches, The Widow, Crushed, Doctor Who, Shoot the Messenger, Chasing Shadows, Arrow, Upstairs Downstairs, NCIS, Private Practice, ER, Boudica, The Knock, Crocodile Shoes, Soldier Soldier, Covington Cross, Hannay, A Killing on the Exchange, Weapons
of Mass Destruction, Ben Hur, The Bill, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, Without a Trace, Freezing, Lost in Austen, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hope Springs, Law & Order: SVU, Flashforward, Marchlands. Films include Bukowski, Carrington, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, The Space Between Us, Crashing, Sordid Things, Callers, Like Crazy, A Pin for the James Corrigan
Butterfly, Essex Boys, Croupier, Sweet Land, Alpha Dog. Audio includes Dr Who, The River Song Diaries (Big Finish), Miss Marple (Harper Collins). Rosalind Lailey Jane Seymour / Serving Woman Theatre includes Caroline Commanville in The Oyster Problem, Orlando (Jermyn Street
Theatre); Una in Sophia (Arcola); Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Helena/ Puck/Bottom in A Mini Summer Night’s Dream (Watermill Theatre); Annabelle in The River Runner (Glimmer Theatre); Sonnet Sunday (Shakespeare’s Globe); Viola in Twelfth Night (Sam Wanamaker Festival/ Globe); Roberta in The Railway Children (Theatre Royal York). Television includes Pan Tau. Films include The Railway Children and the shorts Twenty, Green Space, Pigeons!, Aquarium, Growing Pains. Trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Nitai Levi Mark Smeaton Theatre includes Benjamin Coffin III in Rent (Curve Leicester); Jonah in Til It Stops (Cockpit Theatre); The Band’s Visit (Donmar Warehouse); Piet in Mandela (Young Vic, Workshop); Becoming Angela, Accounting for Beginners (National Theatre, Workshop);
Chris Green
Sarah Harrison
Sidney Falco in The Sweet Smell of Success, Gold in The Wild Party, Katurian in The Pillowman, Jim O’Connor in The Glass Menagerie, Soloist in Is There Life After High School, Soloist in Letters Home (Royal Academy of Music); Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening, Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Edinburgh Fringe). Television includes We Were the Lucky Ones, Masters of the Air. Other credits include Tony/Bernardo in Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story (BBC Concert Orchestra/Barbican Centre); Bunuel in the Labyrinth of Turtles (original soundtrack, Abbey Road Studios). Trained at Royal Academy of Music. Instagram/Twitter @nitailevi Peter Losasso Francis Weston Theatre includes Frank Gardner in Mrs Warren’s Profession (Theatre Royal Bath/UK tour); Wendy and Peter Pan (Leeds
Playhouse); Fighting Irish (Belgrade Theatre); The Wipers Times (Watermill Theatre, UK tour & Arts Theatre West End); Trial by Laughter (Watermill Theatre/UK tour); Twelfth Night (Petersfield Shakespeare); Anguis (Bunker & Gilded Balloon). Television includes Passchendaele 100, Tracy Beaker Returns, Parents of the Band. Peter also works as a Movement Director and a Physical Theatre Deviser. Trained at LAMDA (Spotlight Prize 2016). Freya Mavor Anne Boleyn Theatre includes Annie in Good Canary (Rose Theatre); Sophie in Boys (No Prophet Theatre Company/Arcola Theatre). Television includes Industry, The ABC Murders, Il était une seconde fois, Virtuoso, New Worlds, Castings, The White Queen, Skins (series 5 & 6: TV Choice Awards Best Actress nomination). Films include About Joan, Freegard, My Policeman, L’Empereur de Paris, The Keeper, Dead in a Week (or Your Money Back), The Sense of an Ending, Ils sont partout, Modern Life is Rubbish (BAFTA
Freya Mavor James Atherton
Scotland Awards Best Actress nomination), Cézanne et Moi, La Dame dans l’Auto avec des Lunettes et un Fusil, Sunshine on Leith (BAFTA Scotland Awards Best Actress nomination), Not Another Happy Ending; and the shorts Winning Marge and Disco. Freya was selected for the Emerging Writers Programme at the London Library 2020/21; she is a published poet and as writer/director her debut short film Kinked screened at the London Short Film Festival 2024. Awards include Empire Awards Best Female Newcomer nomination 2014, Screen International Star of Tomorrow 2013. Trained at National Youth Theatre and L’école du Jeu: Cycle Intensif. Lily Nichol Jane Parker, later Jane Boleyn Theatre includes Joan la Pucelle in Henry VI Part I, Imperium I and Imperium II, Maydays (RSC); Georgie in Blood Wedding (Salisbury Playhouse); Lily in If We Were Older (National Theatre New Views); Julius Caesar (Sheffield Crucible); Table, As You Like It (ArtsEd). Television includes The Ballad of
Renegade Nell, Maternal, Lockwood, I Hate Suzie, The South Westerlies. Films include the shorts Mary Jane, Handymen, Stay with Me. Trained at Arts Educational Schools. Lucy Phelps Mary Boleyn Theatre includes Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Sebastian in The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe); Isabella in Measure for Measure, Rosalind in As You Like It, Cloanthus in Dido Queen of Carthage, Octavia in Antony and Cleopatra (RSC); Rosalind and Isabella in 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio (RSC/Windsor Castle); Romaine in Witness for the Prosecution (London County Hall); Jess in King Charles III (Almeida/UK & Australia tour); Fanny in Sex and the Three Day Week (Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Theatres); Diamond in Viva Forever! (West End); Lynette in Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down, Ida in See How They Run (York Theatre
Kemi-Bo Jacobs
Ben Jones
Royal); Dawn in Lay Down Your Cross (Hampstead Theatre); Jasmine in Earthquakes in London (National Theatre/ Headlong); Lynsey in Country Music (Royal Court Gala). Television includes Playing Nice, The Chelsea Detective, DI Ray, Grace, Siblings, Skins, Silent Witness, Call the Midwife, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, The Coroner, New Tricks. Radio includes Trespass, All Bleeding Stops Eventually, The Adventurers, Leave It to P Smith, The Gift, Rotterdam, Fathers & Sons, The Good Listener, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Superyou. Films include Until I Breathe This Life and the BBC short Immaculate Heart. Trained at LAMDA. Roger Ringrose Cardinal Wolsey / Thomas Cromwell Theatre includes John Mayhew in Witness for the Prosecution (County Hall London); Mike in Each His Own Wilderness
(The Orange Tree); Alan Bennett in Untold Stories (Watermill Theatre); Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder, The Actor in Woman in Black (Vienna’s English Theatre); Ferdinand in The Picture (Salisbury Playhouse); Dr Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest, Lenin in Travesties (Birmingham Rep); Blokhin in Burnt by the Sun, The Soldier in Never So Good (National Theatre); Earl of Warwick in King Henry VI Part III (The Globe); Jacques D’Arc in Jean D’Arc (Avignon Festival); King Charles in In Good King Charles’ Golden Days, Dunois/The Inquisitor in Saint Joan, Jack Tanner in Man and Superman, Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (Shaw Festival/MFP); Von Koren in The Duel (Lyric Hammersmith); Niels Bohr in Copenhagen (The Tabard); Van Gogh in Vincent (Harrogate Theatre). Television includes Joan, The Long Shadow, Stonehouse, The Fear Index, Behind Her Eyes, The Witcher, Years and Years, Anne, Berlin Station, Outlander, Tina & Bobby, Call the Midwife, Mr Selfridge, Doctors, Broadchurch, The Musketeers, The Hour, Hollyoaks Later, Eternal Law, Rosalind Lailey
Nitai Levi
Silent Witness, Waking the Dead, Marchlands. Radio includes First of Millions, Charles Paris, Death and the Penguin, Rogers, Hart and Hammerstein, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Churchill versus Reith, War of Words, North and South, Hellcats, Life Class, Henry IV Part I, The Jester of Astapovo, The Voyage of The St Louis. Films include Scandal in ’97, Clan, Stan & Ollie, Odyssey, The Rookery, The Life of Oleg Gordievsky, London Sonnet. Trained at Academy Drama School and Nottingham University. Andrew Woodall Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk Previously at Chichester First Light, South Downs/The Browning Version (also West End), all Minerva Theatre. Theatre credits include Bloody Difficult Women (Riverside Studios); Great Britain (also West End), Women Beware Women, Much Ado About Nothing, The Life of Galileo, The Voysey Inheritance, Luther, Shape of the Table, Murmuring Judges, Racing Demon, Abingdon Square (National
Theatre); Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Wendy and Peter Pan (RSC); The Knowledge/Little Platoons (Bush); The Sugar Syndrome, Search and Destroy, Disappeared, Weldon Rising (Royal Court); Something in the Air, Admissions, As You Like It, As You Desire Me, A Letter of Resignation (West End); Gaslight, King Lear, Cloud Nine, Waste, The Provok’d Wife (Old Vic); Certain Young Men, Butterfly Kiss (Almeida); Hedda Gabler (Gate, Dublin); The Wars of the Roses (Rose Theatre Kingston); Don Carlos (Glasgow Citizens); Benefactors (Sheffield Crucible); The Art of Success (Paines Plough). Television includes The Couple Next Door, The Reckoning, Lockwood & Co, Endeavour, Des, Lucan, Silk, Miranda, New Worlds, An Adventure in Space and Time, Hear the Silence, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, New Tricks, Grantchester, Charles II, Kavanagh QC, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Dalziel & Pascoe, Heartbeat, Nature Boy, Seaforth, Degrees of Error, Prime Suspect III,
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Lily Nichol
Headhunters, Wish Me Luck, Hannay. Films include Solo: A Star Wars Story, Where Is Anne Frank?, 303 Squadron, The Riot Club, Belle, Johnny English Reborn, Hypnotic, Count of Monte Cristo, Regeneration.
Creative Team Lucy Bailey Director Previously at Chichester Tonight at 8.30, Stairs to the Roof (Minerva Theatre). Lucy Bailey studied English at Oxford University where she directed the world premiere of Samuel Beckett’s Lessness in consultation with the author. Recent productions include And Then There Were None (Northampton/Fiery Angel, UK & China tour); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); Oleanna and Switzerland (Theatre Royal Bath/West End); Gaslight (UK tour); Witness for the Prosecution (London’s County Hall); Ghosts (Northampton); Comus, A Masque in Honour of Chastity (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Globe); Kenny Morgan (Arcola). Upcoming work includes the UK tour of Murder on the Orient Express. Lucy co-founded The Print Room in Notting Hill Gate, where she was artistic director from 2010 - 2012 and directed shows including Fabrication, Snake in the Grass, Kingdom of Earth and Uncle Vanya. She was co-founder of the music theatre company gogmagogs (1995-2008), and directed/devised seven shows which toured through UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Brazil, Australia and the US. Other credits include Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, As You Like It, The Maid’s Tragedy (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Winter’s Tale, The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar (RSC/Stratford/London/New York); Baby Doll, The Night Season (National Theatre/West End); The Graduate, Great Expectations, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Dial M for Murder (West Yorkshire Playhouse/West End/UK tour); Love from a Stranger, Gaslight (Royal & Derngate/UK tour); The Importance of Being Earnest (West End/UK tour); Fortune’s Fool (Old Vic); King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath); The Beggar’s Opera (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Private Lives, Glass Eels, Comfort Me with Apples (Hampstead); Don’t Look Now (Crucible, Sheffield/Lyric Hammersmith). Lucy Bailey
Opera credits include Glass Human (Glyndebourne); Cave (London Sinfonietta/ Royal Opera House, at the Print Works London); Gudrun Fier Sang (Copenhagen dry dock); Jenufa (ENO); Cheryoumushki 1958 (Lyric Hammersmith); Noyes Fludde, Triptych, Mary of Egypt (Aldeburgh Festival); Pasolini’s Teorema (Maggio Musicale Florence/Munich Biennale/London QEH); Mitridate (Wexford Opera Festival). Chris Davey Lighting Designer Previously at Chichester Romeo and Juliet, My One and Only (Festival Theatre), She Loves Me (Minerva Theatre). Chris has designed extensively for Shared Experience Theatre, Royal Court, Hampstead Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Royal Exchange Manchester, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Royal Lyceum
Edinburgh, Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow, Birmingham Rep and Manchester International Festival. Recent designs include Witness for the Prosecution (London County Hall); And Then There Were None (national & international tours); The Gifting (Leeds Year of Culture); Noah’s Flood (Slung Low/MIF); 42nd Street (Théatre de Chatêlet, Paris); Tarantino Live (Riverside Studios); Touching the Void (Bristol Old Vic/Duke of York’s London/Tokyo); Macbeth (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Sweeney Todd (Welsh National Opera/La Monnaie, Brussels); The Car Man, Lord of the Flies (Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures/Royal Albert Hall/Sadler’s Wells, national & international tours); Carlos Acosta Classical Farewell (Royal Albert Hall); The Driver’s Seat (National Theatre of Scotland); The Shawshank Redemption, Footloose, Twelve Angry Men, Dial M for
Murder, High Society, Wonderful Town (national tours). Other theatre credits include Or You Could Kiss Me, Beyond the Horizon, Spring Storm, Harper Regan, The Seagull, Pillars of the Community, A Dream Play, Iphigenia at Aulis, War and Peace, Baby Doll, The Colour of Justice (National Theatre); Titus Andronicus, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Cymbeline, Alice in Wonderland, Night of the Soul, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Everyman (both also in New York), A Month in the Country, Troilus and Cressida, The Comedy of Errors (world tour), Mysteria, Easter (RSC). Winner of the TMA Best Lighting Design for Dial M for Murder (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Beyond the Horizon (Royal and Derngate, Northampton). chrisdaveylx.com
Beth Duke Sound Designer Credits include Retrograde (Kiln Theatre); Sherlock Holmes and the Poison Wood, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (Watermill Theatre); The Frogs (Royal & Derngate/Kiln Theatre); Wishmas: A Fantastical Christmas Adventure (Secret Group); Jack and the Beanstalk (Stratford East); Syncopation (Bridewell Theatre); What It Means (Wilton’s Music Hall); Strategic Love Play (Belgrade Theatre/UK tour); The Trial of Josie K (Unicorn Theatre); Akedah (Hampstead Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland (Mercury Theatre); Amma VR Experience (Tara Theatre); Death Drop: Back in the Habit (Garrick Theatre/UK tour); A Single Man (Park Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest (English Touring Theatre); Bridgerton (Secret Cinema); Mad House (Ambassador’s Theatre); Mog the Forgetful Cat (Royal & Derngate/Old Vic); Robin Hood (Bristol Old Vic); Death Drop (Garrick & Criterion Theatres/UK tour); J’Ouvert (Harold Pinter Theatre & BBC); One Jewish Orlando Gough
Boy (Trafalgar Studios, West End & UK tour); Typical Girls (Sheffield Crucible); Scenes with Girls, Living Newspaper (Royal Court); Isla (Theatr Clwyd); Tuck Shop West End (Garrick Theatre); Patricia Gets Ready (Pleasance Theatre/UK tour); Gentlemen, Pipeline, A Fantastic Bohemian, Lovesick (Arcola Theatre); Reimagining (Almeida Theatre); Last Easter (Orange Tree Theatre); Mission (The Big House); One Under with Graeae Theatre Company (Plymouth Drum/ UK tour); Superstar, Anything is Possible if You Think Hard Enough About It (Southwark Playhouse); New Views (National Theatre); Silence (Mercury Theatre/UK tour); Together, Not the Same (Sadler’s Wells); Great Expectations (Geffrye Museum); The State of Things (Brockley Jack Studio); as Associate: Manor (Lyttelton Theatre); Gunpowder Immersive Experience (Tower Hill); War of the Worlds Immersive Experience (56 Leadenhall Street); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Tobacco Factory); Apollo 13 (Original Theatre Company); Dust (New York Theatre Workshop).
Orlando Gough Composer Orlando Gough is a composer (and sometimes lyricist, librettist, music director, MC, recording engineer, cookery writer), who writes operas, choral music, musictheatre, music for dance and theatre, and creates large-scale site-specific work. orlandogough.com Philippa Gregory Novelist Dr Philippa Gregory CBE is one of the world’s foremost historical novelists. She wrote her first ever novel, Wideacre, when she was completing her PhD in eighteenthcentury literature and it sold worldwide, heralding a new era for historical fiction. Her flair for blending history and imagination developed into a signature style and Philippa went on to write many bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Queen. Now a recognised
Osa Audu James Corrigan Lucy Phelps Freya Mavor
authority on women’s history, Philippa graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent and was made Alumna of the Year in 2009. She holds honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck University of London. Philippa is a member of the Society of Authors and in 2016, was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writers’ Association. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Platinum Award by Nielsen for achieving significant lifetime sales across her entire book output. In 2020 she was made a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to literature and charity. Philippa’s 2023 book, Normal Women – 900 Years of Making History, is a history of women in England over nine
centuries, from the Norman invasion in 1066 to women’s ordination into the Church of England in 1994. Lata Nobes Assistant Director Lata is a theatre director, actor and musician. She studied Music at Oxford University and directing on the Young Vic’s Introduction to Directing. She is a creative associate of Lazarus Theatre Company, and was 2022 resident assistant director with Kali Theatre. As Director: Your Call is Important to Us (Camden People’s Theatre, Riverside Studios); The Light Trail (The Hope Theatre); Edie (Theatre 503); 12 (The Greenhouse); The Mozart Question, Richard III ( (Upstairs at the Gatehouse); Alice in Wonderland (Millers Theatre, Zurich), Not About Heroes (Lion and Unicorn); Amadeus (Oxford Playhouse BT Studio). As associate director: CRIPtic Pit Party (Barbican Pit); Babybox (York Theatre Royal). As assistant director: Semele (Blackheath Halls Opera); Silence (Donmar Warehouse & Tara Theatre); Henry VI: Rebellion, Wars of the Roses (RSC); Past Life (The Lowry),; Macbeth, Salome (Lazarus Theatre Company); Girls Like That, The Secret Shed of Trams and Dreams (Tramshed); Nice Work If You Can Get It (Upstairs at the Gatehouse).
Lata Nobes
Joanna Parker Designer Joanna Parker designs sets and costumes for theatre, opera and dance; her works have premiered in the UK, Europe and the USA. Theatre: Peculiar Journey through Time (The Burg Theater, Vienna); Translations, iGirl, Walls and Windows (Abbey Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); On Raftery’s Hill (Abbey Theatre); The Noise of Time (Complicité/Lincoln Centre NY); The Sarajevo Story (Lyric Hammersmith); American Buffalo and The Misanthrope (Young Vic); After Darwin (Hampstead Theatre); The Robbers (Gate Theatre); Off Camera (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Apache Tears (Clean Break/ Battersea Arts). Opera includes The Requiem/After Tears (and BBC film) and The Pearl Fishers (also Video Designs) and Andrea Chenier (Opera North); Glass Human (Glyndebourne on Tour); Rodelinda, The Rape of Lucretia (RCM); Precipice, Carmen (also Video Design & Movement, Grange Festival Opera); Aida (Opera North/Montpellier Opera); Turandot (Opera North/Teatro Nacional de São Carlos); The Barber of Seville (Glyndebourne Festival/tour/Malmo Opera); The Commission, Café Kafka (ROH & Aldeburgh Music); The Two Widows (Angers Nantes Opera); Eugene Onegin, Flavio, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Alcina, The Marriage of Figaro (English Touring Opera); The Cunning Little Vixen (Opera
Theatre Company Dublin/Brno Festival Opera); Friend of People (Scottish Opera); Giulio Cesare (ROH). joannaparker.org/selected-works Susanna Peretz Wigs, Hair and Make-Up Designer Previously at Chichester Assassins, Doubt, The Long Song, Plenty (Festival Theatre), Hedda Tesman (Minerva Theatre). Theatre includes Macbeth (London/ Washington DC); The Time Traveller’s Wife (Apollo Theatre); Player Kings (Noël Coward Theatre); A Little Life (Harold Pinter Theatre); Noises Off (Garrick Theatre); The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Julius Caesar (Bridge Theatre); Death of a Salesman, Wings (Young Vic); Ghost Stories, Bugsy Malone, Tipping the Velvet, City of Glass (Lyric Hammersmith); Peter Pan (Regent’s Park); The Last Ship (UK tour); Pity, Prudes, Gun Dog, Girls and Boys, Road, Birdland, Hangmen (also West End) (Royal Court); Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (also NT Live), Don Juan in Soho, The Exorcist (West End); Machinal, The Game, Mr Burns, Medea, The Treatment, Carmen Disruption, Mary Stuart (also West End), Oresteia (also Trafalgar Studios), Hamlet (also West End), The Duchess of Malfi (Almeida); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Old Vic); The Grinning Man (Bristol Old Vic/Trafalgar Studios); The Humans (BAM, NY); The Way of the World, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Teddy Ferrara (Donmar Warehouse); Witness for the Prosecution (London Court House). Opera includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aldeburgh Festival); Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, Dark Mirror, Curlew River (Barbican/US tour); The Illuminated Heart (Lincoln Centre, NY); Greek (Scottish Opera). Film and TV includes My Sister’s Bones, Hamlet, Prisoners of Paradise, The Show, Electric Dreams, In The Dark Half, His Heavy Heart, Jimmy’s End, Showpieces and Skeletons (BAFTA nominee and Michael Powell Award-winner). susannaperetzfx.com
Mike Poulton Writer Mike Poulton is a dramatist who began his stage career at Chichester with adaptations of Turgenev’s Fortune’s Fool and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya – both winners of Tony Awards on Broadway. For Chichester he has also adapted Strindberg’s The Father, Schiller’s Wallenstein, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and De Filippo’s The Syndicate. His many other translations and adaptations include, for the Royal Shakespeare Company: Robert Harris’s Imperium, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (also West End and Broadway), a two-part adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (also West End and a tour of the US and Spain) and Malory’s Morte d’Arthur; Schiller’s Don Carlos (Sheffield Crucible/West End, also Rough Magic Theatre Company, Dublin and Göteborgs Stadsteater); The York Mystery Plays (York Minster); Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (Royal & Derngate, Northampton); Uncle Vanya (The Print Room); Schiller’s Luise Miller (Donmar Warehouse); Anjin: The English Samurai (Horipro, Tokyo); Schiller’s Mary Stuart (Theatr Clwyd); Fortune’s Fool (The Old Vic); Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea (Birmingham Repertory Theatre); Ibsen’s Rosmersholm (Almeida Theatre); Myrmidons (Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin); Hedda Gabler (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Liverpool Playhouse); Three Sisters (Birmingham Rep); Ghosts (Theatre Royal Plymouth); The Seagull, Three Sisters, The Dance of Death and an adaptation of Euripides’ Ion (Mercury Theatre, Colchester). His original play Kenny Morgan premiered at the Arcola Theatre. He was made an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2017. Ginny Schiller CDG Casting Director Previously at Chichester, 4000 Miles (Minerva Theatre) and three repertory seasons co-cast with Maggie Lunn 2003-05. Also this season, Redlands. Ginny has been an in-house casting
director for the RSC, Chichester Festival Theatre, Rose Theatre Kingston, ETT and Soho Theatre and has worked closely with Bath Theatre Royal and Ustinov Studio for the last decade. She has cast extensively for the West End and touring circuit as well as for the Almeida, Arcola, Birmingham Rep, Bolton Octagon, Bristol Old Vic, Cambridge Arts, Charing Cross Theatre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Frantic Assembly, Hampstead Theatre, Headlong, Jermyn Street, Leicester Curve, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Lyric Theatre Belfast, Menier Chocolate Factory, Northampton Royal & Derngate, Nottingham Playhouse, Oxford Playhouse, Plymouth Theatre Royal and Drum, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Shared Experience, Sheffield Crucible, Traverse Edinburgh, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Wilton’s Music Hall, Young Vic and Yvonne Arnaud Guildford. She has also worked on many television, film and radio productions, including the BBC Radio 4 series Nuremberg and Nazis: The Road To Power. Recent theatre productions include A View from the Bridge (Ustinov/Haymarket), Machinal (Ustinov/Old Vic), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Southwark), Noises Off (Phoenix Theatre), The Tempest (Ustinov Studio), The Starry Mike Poulton Oscar Batterham
Messenger (Wyndham’s) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (UK tour). Edda Sharpe Voice and Dialect Coach Previously at Chichester The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Hedda Tesman (Minerva Theatre). Theatre includes Baghdaddy (Royal Court); Sarah (Coronet Theatre); My Fair Lady (London Coliseum); Oleanna (Arts Theatre, West End); Switzerland, King Lear (Theatre Royal, Bath); Love Love Love, A Doll’s House (Lyric Hammersmith); Gaslight (UK tour); When The Crows Visit (Kiln Theatre); Mother of Him (Park Theatre); Hobson’s Choice (Manchester Royal Exchange); Does My Bomb Look Big In This, Approaching Empty (Kiln Theatre & Tamasha Theatre); Witness for the Prosecution (County Hall); Lions and Tigers (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Graduate (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Anita and Me (Birmingham Rep); African Gothic, My Children! My Africa! (Two Sheds Theatre); Around the World In 80 Days (St James’s Theatre); East is East (Trafalgar Studios); The 39 Steps (Criterion Theatre); Dangerous Lady (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Rough Crossing (Headlong); The Price (Bolton Octagon); The Rover, Volpone, Wendy
and Peter Pan, What Country Friends Is This?, The Homecoming, I’ll Be The Devil (RSC); and 20 seasons as Head of Voice and Dialect at The Shaw Festival Theatre, Ontario. Television includes Beowulf, Last Tango, X Company, Ant and Dec’s Saturday Take Away, Gordon Ramsay’s Cookalong Live. Films include Patients of a Saint, Far From The Madding Crowd, The Door, The Anomaly, Kajaki. Publications: How To Do Accents and How To Do Standard English Accents. Digital: The ACCENT Kit app, available for iPhone and Android. Dick Straker Video Designer Previously at Chichester The Long Song, A Marvellous Year for Plums (co-design with Ian William Galloway) (all Festival Theatre). Extensive theatre includes The Book Thief (Belgrade Coventry/Curve Leicester); The Pillowman (Duke of York’s); Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (UK & European tour); A Monster Calls (UK tour/ Chichester Festival Theatre/Bristol Old Vic/ The Old Vic); Peter Gynt (National Theatre/ Edinburgh International Festival); Don Juan in Soho (Wyndham’s); Cymbeline (Royal Shakespeare Theatre/Barbican); Before I Leave (National Theatre Wales); Only the Brave (Welsh Millennium Centre/Soho); The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (Sherman Cymru); Love’s Sacrifice (Swan Theatre RSC); The Infidel, Crowning Glory (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Body of an American, The Prophet (Gate Theatre); Café Kafka/The Commission (Royal Opera House); The Mountaintop (Trafalgar Studios); Roots (Donmar Warehouse); Paper Dolls (Tricycle); And Then the Dark (Wolsey Ipswich); Jumpers (National Theatre); Hitchcock Blonde (Royal Court); The Woman in White (Palace/Marquis Theatres). Opera includes Rusalka (Liège Opera); Aida, Andrea Chenier (Opera North); Greek (Scottish Opera); Carmen, Fortunio, Tristan and Isolde (Grange Park Opera); Notorious (Gothenburg Opera); Eugene Onegin (English Touring Opera); The Ring Cycle
(Royal Opera House). Video consultant for Alexander McQueen fashion shows and Savage Beauty exhibition at V&A and MOMA NY. mesmer.co.uk Ayse Tashkiran Movement Director Theatre includes Hamnet, As You Like It, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, The White Devil, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Days of Significance (also national tour), Europeana, The Provoked Wife, The Duchess of Malfi, Dido Queen of Carthage, Hecuba, King John, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, Doctor Faustus (Royal Shakespeare Company); Mary, FOLK, Wildefire, Belongings (Hampstead Theatre); Dido’s Bar (Dash Arts/national tour); And Then There Were None (national & international tours); The Dark, Tidy Up, Shh...Bang! (Peut-Être Theatre/national & international tours); Let Your Hands Sing in the Silence (Projekt Europa); Kiss Marry Kill, Skin Hunger (Dante or Die); Blank (Donmar Warehouse); Shakespeare in Love (Theatre Royal Bath/national tour); The Wolves (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Othello (Shakespeare’s Globe); Fantastic Mr Fox (Nuffield Theatre/national tour); Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Sheffield Crucible/ETT); The Mysteries (York Minster); The Government Inspector (Birmingham Rep); Barbarians (Young Vic); Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Exchange Manchester); Little Eagles (RSC/ Hampstead); The Chairs (Theatre Royal Bath); The Tempest (Shakespeare Festival Gdansk); Sarajevo Story (Lyric Hammersmith); Ma Vie en Rose (Young Vic); Macbeth (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); La Songe de 21 Juin (French national tour); Brixton Stories (Lyric Hammersmith Studio); Here’s What I Did With My Body One Day (national tour). Opera includes The Sleeper (WNO Max/Coal Exchange); Sweeney Todd (WNO Max Millennium Centre); The Beggar’s Opera (Blackheath Concert Hall); L’Orfeo (Greenwich Theatre). Publications on movement include
Movement Directors in Contemporary Theatre: Conversations on Craft (Bloomsbury, Methuen 2020); The Actor and His Body by Litz Pisk, introduction by Ayse Tashkiran (Bloomsbury, Methuen 2017). Ayse is an Associate Artist of the RSC. aysetashkiran.com Kate Waters Fight Director Kate has been an Equity Registered Fight Director since 2001, directing fights for theatre, TV & film. She has worked for many of the UK’s major theatres including the National Theatre, Royal Court, RSC, Donmar, The Globe and in the West End. She is also a qualified boxing coach, coaches at Rathbone Amateur Boxing Club and is also an England Coach. Previously at Chichester Fight Director for Assassins, The Norman Conquests (Festival Theatre), The Deep Blue Sea (Minerva Theatre), King Lear (Minerva Theatre and Duke of York’s) and Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (Minerva Theatre and Spiegeltent); Fight and Movement Director for Black Comedy (Minerva Theatre). Work for the National Theatre includes The Father and The Assassin, Much Ado About Nothing, Small Island, Othello, As You Like It, Our Country’s Good, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (also West End), One Man Two Guvnors Lucy Phelps Freya Mavor
(also West End, Broadway, world tour), Frankenstein, Hamlet, War Horse (and West End). Recent work includes Macbeth (Wessex Grove); Hamnet (RSC & West End); Guys & Dolls, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Marx, Julius Caesar (The Bridge Theatre); Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (West End/ Germany); The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Hand to God (West End); Private Lives, Henry V (Donmar Warehouse); King Lear, The Secret Lives of Bees, The Tragedy of Macbeth (Almeida); Lord of the Flies (Leeds Playhouse); Kiss Me, Kate (Sheffield Crucible); The Last Goodbye (The Old Globe, San Diego California); Cyrano de Bergerac (Jamie Lloyd Company); Don Giovanni (ROH); Sweat, Julius Caesar, Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse & St Ann’s Warehouse NYC); All’s Well That Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth (RSC); Carousel, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Peter Pan (Regent’s Park). Kate is a regular Fight Director for Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, and choreographed the fights for Coronation Street Live 2015. Films include the National Theatre’s Death of England: Face to Face and Romeo and Juliet, Lola, My Policeman, Making Noise Quietly, Pond Life.
Events
The Other Boleyn Girl Dressing the Tudors Friday 19 April – Saturday 11 May Corsets and codpieces, velvet hats, bejewelled dresses and fur-lined coats – the costume options for a Tudor period drama are endless. Our free foyer exhibition takes a closer look at the complex art of dressing in the Tudor court. To get even more from the exhibition, join a Guided Tour or, if you’re a school teacher, book your class for one of our Schools Tours on selected dates. Free (optional Guided Tours £12/£5 cft.org.uk/dressing-the-tudors)
Pre-Show Talk Thursday 25 April, 5.45pm Join director Lucy Bailey for a fascinating insight into how her production came together, with a chance to ask questions of your own. Lucy is in conversation with bestselling author Kate Mosse. Free but booking is essential.
In Conversation with Philippa Gregory Tuesday 30 April, 5,30pm Internationally best-selling author Philippa Gregory joins us for a oneoff, in-depth conversation about her novel The Other Boleyn Girl, and the process of it being adapted for the stage. Hosted by Vicky Edwards. £12 (£5 for Prologue members)
Post-Show Talk Wednesday 8 May Stay after the performance to hear from company members about all the action behind the scenes and ask questions of your own. Free
Consider yourself part of the CFT family Get closer to CFT and become part of our community with our Learning, Education and Participation team (you can call them LEAP for short). Whatever your age or ability, there’s something for you at CFT. From people who have been coming to CFT for years, to those who have never set foot in a theatre, we offer exciting opportunities for everyone from newborns to those in their 90s. Weekly classes. One-off workshops. Long term projects to get your teeth into. Our LEAP team does it all. This is a space where experiences are created and shared, and where everyone can find their place. So come join us, and become part of our story.
‘Working at the theatre under many guises gave me a well-rounded knowledge of our industry and the support was always there and still is – I wouldn’t be where I am without it. Please never stop working tirelessly to grow us into the next generation.’ Former CFYT member
‘I’ve discovered abilities I never knew I had. The classes contribute greatly to my quality of life and to that of the wider community.’ Community participant
So many people think they know what we do here at CFT. But did you know that we offer: • Free Youth Theatre places for young carers and anyone from underprivileged backgrounds
• Groups for adults with disabilities
• A creative outlet for isolated individuals through our weekly Chatter Project
• Wellbeing support for participants, visiting cast and company members, and staff
• Weekly Festival Fridays for kids who find creative ways of learning more accessible
• Free Buddy support for anyone who feels unable to attend shows or classes on their own
• Work experience, training opportunities and apprenticeships
• Training opportunities in Technical Theatre And that’s really just scratching the surface of our LEAP team’s reach. Visit cft.org.uk/get-closer or email leap@cft.org.uk to find out more and discover a way into CFT that’s right for you. With thanks to all our amazing LEAP supporters who generously fund this work.
Help us hatch the next generation of talent We have an urgent need to build a third space for emerging artists, community groups and families. Our solution is The Nest: a sustainably built performance venue nestled among the trees, providing a safe space to incubate exciting new projects. It will be a home for community and families, late night and fringe-style events, and it will hatch the work of our Emerging Artists Development Programme.
Help us make our dream a reality The Nest will cost at least £1,500,000 and we need your support to make it happen.
Please donate today cft.org.uk/the-nest
‘The Nest offers an amazing opportunity on a local level and also, really importantly, stands CFT confidently as a national cultural leader and change maker.’ JUSTIN AUDIBERT, CFT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Registered Charity No. 1088552
Staff Trustees Mark Foster (Chairman) Neil Adleman Jessica Brown-Fuller Jean Vianney Cordeiro Paddy Dillon Tasha Gladman Vicki Illingworth Rear Admiral John Lippiett CB CBE Harry Matovu QC Caro Newling OBE Nick Pasricha Philip Shepherd Stephanie Street
Sally Garner-Gibbons
Directors Office Justin Audibert Kathy Bourne Miranda Cromwell Keshira Aarabi
Marketing, Communications & Sales Josh Allan Assistant Box Office Manager Caroline Aston Audience Insight Manager Becky Batten Head of Marketing (Maternity leave) Laura Bern Head of Marketing (Maternity cover) Jessica Blake-Lobb Marketing Manager (Corporate) Helen Campbell Box Office Systems Manager Jay Godwin Box Office Assistant Lorna Holmes Assistant Box Office Manager Mollie Kent Box Office Assistant Stephanie McKelvey-Aves Box Office Assistant James Mitchell Sales & Marketing Assistant James Morgan Head of Sales & Ticketing Lucinda Morrison Head of Press & Publications Brian Paterson Distribution Co-ordinator Kirsty Peterson Box Office Assistant Ben Phillips Marketing & Press Assistant Catherine Rankin Box Office Assistant Vic Shead Marketing Manager Luke Shires Director of Marketing & Communications Jenny Thompson Social Media & Digital Marketing Officer Grace Upcraft Box Office Assistant Josh Vine Box Office Assistant Isobel Walter Marketing Officer Claire Walters Box Office Assistant Joanna Wiege Box Office Manager Jane Wolf Box Office Assistant
Angela Buckley Sophie Hobson Hannah Joss Patricia Key Aimée Massey Julia Smith
Artistic Director Executive Director Associate Director Projects & Events Co-ordinator Projects, Events & Green Book Co-ordinator Creative Associate Associate Director (Literary) PA to the Directors Diversity, Inclusion & Change Consultant Company Secretary & Board Support
Building & Site Services Chris Edwards Maintenance Engineer Lez Gardiner Duty Engineer Daren Rowland Facilities Manager Graeme Smith Duty Engineer Costume Jessica Bolton Isabelle Brook Aly Fielden Helen Clark Helen Flower Helen Gardner Lysanne Goble Jobina Hardy
Dresser Wardrobe Assistant Wardrobe Manager Dresser Senior Costume Assistant Wardrobe Manager Wardrobe Assistant Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Assistant Abigail Hart Wardrobe Assistant Lily Eugene-Kelly Dresser Kendal Love Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Manager Lulu Millen Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Assistant Paul Paintin Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Manager Natasha Pawluk Deputy Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Loz Tait Head of Costume Colette Tulley Wardrobe Maintenance Eloise Wood Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Assistant Development Nick Carmichael Development Officer Julie Field Friends Administrator Sophie Henstridge-Brown Head of Philanthropy Sarah Mansell Appeal Director Liz McCarthy-Nield Development Director Leo Powell Appeal Co-ordinator Charlotte Stroud Development Manager Karen Taylor Development Manager Megan Wilson Events and Development Officer Finance Alison Baker Payroll & Pensions Officer Rob Bloomfield IT and AV Technician Sally Cunningham Purchase Ledger Assistant Krissie Harte Finance Officer Katie Palmer Assistant Management Accountant Simon Parsonage Interim Finance & Commercial Director Amanda Trodd Management Accountant Protozoon Ltd IT Consultants LEAP Ellen de Vere Matthew Downer Zoe Ellis
Youth & Outreach Trainee Cultural Learning & Participation Apprentice LEAP Co-ordinator
Apprenticeship Co-ordinator Head of Children & Young People’s Programme Senior Youth & Outreach Manager Creative Therapist Youth & Outreach Co-ordinator Senior Community & Outreach Manager Director of LEAP LEAP Projects Manager
Matthew Hawksworth
Hannah Hogg Shari A. Jessie Kate Potter Louise Rigglesford Dale Rooks Angela Watkins
People Helena Berry Heritage & Archive Manager Paula Biggs Head of People Jenefer Francis HR Officer (maternity leave) Naziera Jahir People Manager Emily Oliver Accommodation Co-ordinator Gillian Watkins HR Officer Production Niamh Dilworth Producer Amelia Ferrand-Rook Senior Producer Claire Rundle Production Administrator George Waller Trainee Producer Nicky Wingfield Production Administrator Technical Steph Bartle Deputy Head of Lighting Victoria Baylis Props Assistant Hannah Bracegirdle Sound Technician Finley Bradley Technical Theatre Apprentice Rebecca Cran Stage Crew & Stage Technician Sarah Crispin Deputy Head of Props Workshop Connor Divers Senior Lighting Technician Elise Fairbairn Stage Technician Ross Gardner Stage Crew Sam Garner-Gibbons Technical Director Jack Goodland Stage Crew & Auto Technician Laura Hackett Technical Apprentice Katie Hennessy Props Store Co-ordinator Tom Hitchins Head of Stage & Technical Joe Jenner Production Manager Apprentice
Mike Keniger Bethany Knowles Andrew Leighton
Head of Sound Stage Crew Senior Lighting Technician Ethan Low Stage Crew Charlotte Neville Head of Props Workshop Stuart Partrick Transport & Logistics Assistant Neil Rose Deputy Head of Sound Anna Setchell (Setch) Deputy Head of Stage James Sharples Senior Stage Crew & Rigger Laura Sprake Lighting Technician Graham Taylor Head of Lighting Dominic Turner Lighting Technician Linda Mary Wise Sound Technician Simon Woods Stage Crew Theatre Management Janet Bakose Judith Bruce-Hay Charlie Gardiner Ben Geering
Theatre Manager Duty Manager Duty Manager Head of Customer Operations Dan Hill Assistant House Manager Will McGovern Deputy House Manager Sharon Meier PA to Theatre Manager Gabriele Williams Deputy House Manager Caper & Berry Catering Proclean Cleaning Ltd Cleaning Contractor Goldcrest Guarding Security Stage Door: Bob Bentley, Janet Bounds, Judith Bruce-Hay, Caroline Hanton, Keiko Iwamoto, Chris Monkton, Sue Welling Ushers: Miranda Allemand, Judith Anderson, Maria Antoniou, Jacob Atkins, Carolyn Atkinson, Brian Baker, Richard Berry, Emily Biro, Gloria Boakes, Alex Bolger, Dennis Brombley, Judith Bruce-Hay, Louisa Chandler, Jo Clark, Gaye Douglas, Stella Dubock, Amanda Duckworth, Clair Edgell, Lexi Finch, Suzanne Ford, Suzanne France, Jessica Frewin-Smith, Nigel Fullbrook, Barry Gamlin, Charlie Gardiner, Anna Grindel, Caroline Hanton, Justine Hargraves, Joseph Harrington, Joanne Heather, Marie Innes, Keiko Iwamoto, Joan Jenkins, Pippa Johnson, Julie Johnstone, Ryan Jones, Jan Jordan, Jon Joshua, Sally Kingsbury, Alexandra Langrish, Judith Marsden, Janette McAlpine, Fiona Methven, Chris Monkton, Ella Morgans, Susan Mulkern, Isabel Owen, Martyn Pedersen, Susy Peel, Helen Pinn, Barbara Pope, Fleur Sarkissian, Janet Showell, Lorraine Stapley, Sophie Stirzaker, Angela Stodd, Christine Tippen, Charlotte Tregear, Andy Trust, Sue Welling, James Wisker, Donna Wood, Kim Wylam. We acknowledge the work of all those who give so generously of their time for Chichester Festival Theatre, including our CFT Buddies, Heritage & Archive Volunteers, and our Volunteer Audio Description Team: Lily Barkes, Janet Beckett, Richard Chapman, Tony Clark, Robert Dunn, Geraldine Firmston, Suzanne France, Richard Frost, David Phizackerley, Christopher Todd, Joanna Wiege. Youth Advisory Board: Issie Berg Rust, Theo Craig, Anayis Der Hopkian, Esther Dracott, Chloe Gibson, Aled Hanson, Ophelia Kabdenova, Alice Kilgallon, Francesca McBride, Ace Merriot, Katherine Munden, Jacob Simmonds, Susie Udall, Priya Uddin.
Our Supporters 2024/5 Minerva Season Principal Charles Holloway Major Donors Deborah Alun-Jones Robin and Joan Alvarez Elizabeth and the late David Benson Philip Berry George W. Cameron OBE and Madeleine Cameron Sir William and Lady Castell David and Claire Chitty David and Jane Cobb John and Susan Coldstream Clive and Frances Coward Yvonne and John Dean Jim Douglas Nick and Lalli Draper Mrs Veronica J Dukes Melanie Edge Sir Vernon Ellis Huw Evans Steve and Sheila Evans Val and Richard Evans Sandy and Mark Foster Simon and Luci Eyers Robert and Pirjo Gardiner Angela and Uri Greenwood Themy Hamilton Lady Heller and the late Sir Michael Heller Liz Juniper Roger Keyworth Vaughan and Sally Lowe Jonathan and Clare Lubran Elizabeth Miles Eileen Norris Jerome and Elizabeth O’Hea Mrs Denise Patterson DL Stuart and Carolyn Popham Dame Patricia Routledge DBE David Shalit MBE and Sophie Shalit Greg and Katherine Slay Christine and Dave Smithers Alan and Jackie Stannah Oliver Stocken CBE Howard Thompson Bryan Warnett Ernest Yelf
Trusts and Foundations The Arthur Williams Charitable Trust The Arts Society, Chichester The Bassil Shippam and Alsford Trust The Bernadette Charitable Trust Bruce Wake Charitable Trust The Chartered Accountants’ Livery Charity Dora Green Educational Trust The Dorus Trust The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Elizabeth, Lady Cowdray’s Charity Trust Epigoni Trust Friarsgate Trust The Garrick Charitable Trust The G D Charitable Trust Hobhouse Charitable Trust John Coates Charitable Trust The Mackintosh Foundation The Maurice Marshal Preference Trust Noël Coward Foundation Rotary Club of Chichester Harbour Theatre Artists Fund Wickens Family Foundation
Festival Players 1000+ John and Joan Adams Lindy Ambrose and Tom Reid Sarah and Tony Bolton Robert Brown Ian and Jan Carroll C Casburn and B Buckley Jean Campbell Sarah Chappatte David Churchill Denise Clatworthy Michael and Jill Cook Lin and Ken Craig Deborah Crockford Clive and Kate Dilloway Jim Douglas Peter and Ruth Doust Gary Fairhall Mr Nigel Fullbrook George Galazka Wendy and John Gehr Marion Gibbs CBE Stephen J Gill Mr & Mrs Paul Goswell Rachel and Richard Green Ros and Alan Haigh Rowland and Caroline Hardwick Chris and Carolyn Hughes John and Jenny Lippiett Anthony and Fiona Littlejohn Alan and Virginia Lovell Dr and Mrs Nick Lutte Sarah Mansell and Tim Bouquet Patrick Martyn Rod Matthews James and Anne McMeehan Roberts Mrs Sheila Meadows Mrs Michael Melluish Celia Merrick Roger and Jackie Morris Jacquie Ogilvie Mr and Mrs Gordon Owen Graham and Sybil Papworth Richard Parkinson and Hamilton McBrien Nick and Jo Pasricha John Pritchard Trust Philip Robinson Nigel and Viv Robson Ros and Ken Rokison David and Linda Skuse Peter and Lucy Snell Julie Sparshatt Joanna Walker Ian and Alison Warren Angela Wormald
Festival Players 500+ Judy Addison Smith Mr James and Lady Emma Barnard (The Barness Charity Trust) Martin Blackburn Janet Bounds Frances Brodsky and Peter Parham Sally Chittleburgh Mr and Mrs Jeremy Chubb Mr Charles Collingwood and Miss Judy Bennett Lady Finch Colin and Carole Fisher Beryl Fleming Karin and Jorge Florencio Roz Frampton Jacqueline and Jonathan Gestetner Dr Stuart Hall Dennis and Joan Harrison Barbara Howden Richards Karen and Paul Johnston Frank and Freda Letch Anthony and Fiona Littlejohn Jim and Marilyn Lush Selina and David Marks Dr and Mrs Nick Lutte Sue Marsh Adrian Marsh and Maggie Stoker Trevor and Lynne Matthews Tim McDonald Mrs Mary Newby Margaret and Martin Overington Jean Plowright Ben Reeder Robin Roads Graham and Maureen Russel David Seager John and Tita Shakeshaft Mr and Mrs Brian Smouha Elizabeth Stern Anne Subba-Row Harry and Shane Thuillier Miss Melanie Tipples Penny Tomlinson Tina Webster Chris and Dorothy Weller Nick and Tarnia Williams
...and to all those who wish to remain anonymous, thank you for your incredible support.
‘Chichester Festival Theatre enriches lives with its work both on and off stage. It is a privilege to be connected in a small way with this inspirational and generous-hearted institution, especially at such a challenging time for everyone in the Arts.’ John and Susan Coldstream, Major Donors
Our Supporters 2024/5 Principal Partners Platinum Level
Prof. E.F. Juniper and Mrs Jilly Styles Gold Level
Silver Level
Corporate Partners Carpenter Box Jones Avens FBG Investment J Leon Group
Montezuma’s Oldham Seals Group Phoenix Dining
William Liley Financial Services Ltd
Why not join us and support the Theatre you love: cft.org.uk/support-us | development.team@cft.org.uk | 01243 812911