Chichester Festival Theatre Chichester Festival Theatre Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, Sussex, England, is a theatre designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. The smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989. The inaugural Artistic Director was Sir Laurence Olivier, and it was at Chichester that the first National Theatre company was formed. Chichester's productions would transfer to the NT's base at the Old Vic in London. The opening productions in 1962 were: "The Chances" by John Fletcher (first production 1638) which opened on 3 July; "The Broken Heart" (1633),
The Old Vic by Sir John Gielgud. Between 1925 and 1931, Lilian Baylis championed the re-building of the then-derelict Sadler's Wells Theatre, and established a ballet company under the direction of Dame Ninette de Valois. For a few years the drama and ballet companies rotated between the two theatres, with the ballet becoming permanently based at Sadler's Wells in 1935. The Old Vic was damaged badly during the Blitz, and the war-depleted company spent all its time touring, based in Burnley, Lancashire at the Victoria Theatre during the years 1940 to 1943. In 1944, the company was re-established in London with Ralph Richardson