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 to breaking point. Yet Prospect continued to draw audiences to the Old Vic where other companies failed. In December 1978, the governors of the Old Vic agreed to a five-year contract with Prospect, announcing to the press on 23 April that henceforth they would be styled "Prospect Productions Ltd., trading as the Old Vic Company". Unfortunately Prospect's touring commitments kept the company out of the theatre for the first half of 1979, leaving the theatre to sink further into debt. The company returned in July with Jacobi's "Hamlet" (toured afterwards to Denmark, Australia and China, the first English theatre company