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),
Bill Mitchell (artistic director) In 2006, he was made an honorary Fellow of Falmouth University. Mitchell won the Best Director award at the Theatre Awards UK in 2011 for "The Passion", a joint production between National Theatre Wales and Wildworks. In 2015, Mitchell worked with Lost Gardens of Heligan on a show called "100: The Day Our World Changed" to commemorate local people who died in WW1. Mitchell was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, but continued to work up to his death on "Wolf’s Child" which was performed at Trelowarren Estate in Cornwall in July 2017. Bill Mitchell (artistic director) Bill Mitchell (2 December