THE MEETING A new play by Charlotte Jones
WELCOME
Welcome to the first world premiere play of Festival 2018.
DANIEL EVANS AND RACHEL TACKLEY PHOTOGRAPH BY TOBIAS KEY
The Meeting, written by the acclaimed writer Charlotte Jones, is inspired by, and made for, our region. We are delighted to be working with Charlotte, who is making her debut at Chichester. The play was informed by her own experience of a Quaker community in Sussex, and the result is a fascinating exploration of a rarely explored milieu. At its heart, the play requires sign language and we are indebted to the support we have had from the many professionals who have helped us along the way. The director, Natalie Abrahami, also makes her debut at Chichester, and we welcome her most warmly. Her recent productions include Machinal at the Almeida Theatre and Queen Anne for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Natalie has assembled a terrific cast including Lydia Leonard, who was most recently seen in Oslo at the National Theatre and the West End, and was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Anne Boleyn in the RSC’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. Gerald Kyd’s many National Theatre credits include Three Winters, Children of the Sun and The Cherry Orchard. Jean St Clair recently won Best Actress for the second time at Clin d’Oeil, the major French Deaf Film festival, for Signs of an Affair which she also wrote. Thank you for your all your support so far during Festival 2018. We have two contemporary dramas, Copenhagen and Cock, and the world premiere of The Watsons yet to come in the Minerva this season. We hope to see you back again soon.
Artistic Director Daniel Evans
cft.org.uk
Executive Director Rachel Tackley
COMING SOON
Clare Burt Joanna Riding Gary Wilmot
FLOWERS FOR MRS HARRIS Based on the novel by Paul Gallico Book by Rachel Wagstaff Music & Lyrics by Richard Taylor 8 – 29 September #FlowersForMrsHarris
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COMING SOON
K ETS C I T LY FAMI AIL ABLE AV
THE MIDNIGHT GANG By David Walliams Adapted by Bryony Lavery Music & Lyrics by Joe Stilgoe WORLD PREMIERE 13 October – 3 November #TheMidnightGang
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TH E CAFÉ & THE FOYLE TERRACE The Café in the Festival Theatre is open daily from 10am serving freshly made sandwiches, soup, cakes and pastries. Enjoy our barista coffee or choose from a range of hot and cold drinks including wines and beers. The Café is light and airy and offers al fresco seating and free Wi-Fi. The Bar and The Foyle Terrace in the Festival Theatre are open 90 minutes before the show and both serve a selection of locally produced spirits, beers, lagers and wine by the glass or the bottle. The Foyle Terrace also serves pizzas, quiches, jacket potatoes and salads before the show.
The Brasserie in the Minerva Theatre is open for pre-show dining in new stylish and elegant surroundings. The restaurant serves a contemporary British menu using local and seasonal ingredients as well as an excellent choice of wines. Open 12.30pm - 2.30pm on matinee days and from 5.30pm for evening performances.
Enjoy either a main meal or one of our lighter food options before or after the show in the Minerva Bar & Grill upstairs, which offers a more relaxed atmosphere. Open 90 minutes before matinee performances, from 5pm for evening performances, during the interval and post-show.
RESERVATIONS
To reserve a table in the Brasserie or Minerva Bar & Grill visit cft.org.uk/dining for online reservations. Alternatively please call 01243 782219 or email dining@cft.org.uk
THE MEETING A new play by Charlotte Jones
A VIEW ACROSS THE SOUTH DOWNS IMAGE COURTESY OF CAROLINE ASTON
A SUSSEX MEETING ‘The Meeting is very much my Sussex play,’ says playwright Charlotte Jones. ‘I started writing it not long after I’d moved here. Landscape is always very important to me; one of the things I found most beautiful were the flint walls and the chalky ground. I could almost picture the Quaker meeting on a beach, sitting among the stones.’ Given that Charlotte has lived in Brighton for 14 years, a Sussex play is perhaps overdue. But The Meeting has had a long gestation. Landscape aside, its chief inspiration lay in the Quaker meetings that Charlotte attended for five years in the historic Friends Meeting House in Lewes, the county town of East Sussex. ‘My children were quite young and I was just craving a bit of silence,’ she admits about her original visits, but she was soon struck
by the ‘inherent theatricality’ of Quaker meetings, with their unstructured form and the power of the unexpected. ‘We’re sitting in a circle, looking at each other and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Is someone going to stand and speak or not? ‘Quakers talk about “that of God in everyone” – it’s a very tolerant and accepting faith. You sit in silence until you are really moved to speak. And even when you’re moved, you have to really question what you’re about to say and whether it is worthwhile and of benefit to the group. I loved the rigour of that. It made me think a lot about silence and what comes out of it.’ Charlotte recalls the very first meeting she attended, at which the sole ministry came from a man she happened to be sitting next to and