Theatre hopes for a May start to the season
Chichester Festival Theatre are currently hoping to go into rehearsals in April for a May start to the summer season.
In the meantime, they have applied for funding through the secondroundofthegovernment’s Cultural Recovery Fund.
They are hoping to announce the first half of the summer season around Easter time; the outcome of their Cultural Recovery Fund application will then help shape the second half of the season which they are hoping to announce in June.
Chichester Festival Theatre executive director Kathy Bourne said: “We are being sensibly cautious, but we are hoping for the best. We will get some idea fromthegovernmentonFebruary 22 as to what is happening. They won’t tell us when we can open, but we might get a steer. We felt nervous about thinking we might be able to start in April (the usual start to the summer festival); May feels more sensible, but with the caveat that we are expecting the first shows of the summer season to be socially-distanced.
“With the Cultural Recovery Fund, they have asked us to put together a budget with the suggestion that social distancing will remain until July. To me, that feels bonkers. We will be starting with social distancing and then increase the numbers (of audience members) incrementally throughout the summer and then maybe not back to full capacity until the autumn.”
If the CFT’s application for Cultural Recovery Fund money isn’t successful, “then we will have to consider what is possible for the second half of the season.
“We will announce the first half of the season around Easter time, about six weeks later than our usual time, and then the second half of the season we will announce around June. It is important to have plenty of wriggle room. (Chichester Festival Theatre artistic director) Daniel (Evans) has got a myriad of ideas. We will just have to make decisions on the size of our audiences and on how our audiences are behaving. At the moment, there is really not a lot of work planned on the touring circuit. We would usually be pencilling in shows now for the autumn and winter.”
But as for the summer: “We are trying to balance how much of a booking period we need. What we learnt from last year is that audiences are booking much later. We feel we are better to announce a little bit later which will allow people to feel much more confident even if we have a shorter time (to sell the tickets). We feel that that is much better than making a big statement and then having to retract.”