Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) creates inspiring experiences that bring people together – on and off the stage. We aim to light a spark in everyone who experiences our work – locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

As one of the UK’s flagship theatres, we are renowned for the exceptionally high standard of our productions and our industry-leading work with the community and young people. Founded in 1962, we were Britain’s first modern thrust stage theatre and the nucleus of the new National Theatre company under its first artistic director Sir Laurence Olivier. Situated in a cathedral city in West Sussex between the South Downs and the sea, our Festival Theatre’s bold thrust stage design makes it one of England’s most striking playhouses – equally suited to epic drama and musicals. The studio theatre, the Minerva, is particularly noted for premieres of new work alongside intimate revivals. Innumerable productions originated at Chichester have transferred to the West End or toured nationally and internationally over the past six decade.

The CFT Archive is a wealth of riches, featuring production papers, photography, programmes, publicity and film, in addition to materials documenting the founding and running of the organisation across six decades. Our Archive is held at the West Sussex Record Office, open to everyone by appointment. You can also explore highlights from our history on our website at https://www.cft.org.uk/about-us/our-history

Visionary Stages was a 2022 project using cutting-edge technology to recreate our 1962 stage for a virtual meet-up with Artistic Director Daniel Evans and guests

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh_rdhF27M8

Specialist areas of work:

Anniversaries

Cataloguing

Community Engagement

Digitisation

Exhibitions

Fundraising

Loans

Oral Histories

Placements/ volunteers

Records Management

Schools and Young People