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Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, it was 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 National Theatre'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), by John Ford, opened 9 July; '' Uncle Vanya'' (1896), by Anton Chekov, opened 16 July. Among the actors in the opening season were: Lewis Casson, Fay Compton, Joan Greenwood, Rosemary Harris, Kathleen Harrison, Keith Michell, André Morell, John Neville, Laurence Ol ...
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Oaklands Park, Chichester
Oaklands Park is a public park in Chichester, West Sussex, England. History In 1939, Chichester City Council purchased the 10 acres of land for the park for the sum of £11,000. In 2006, a clubhouse for the Chichester Rifle and Pistol Club was constructed in the park. In November 2011, a community orchard was planted. In March 2021, a vigil was held in the park for Sarah Everard. Leisure Sports The park contains 4 rugby pitches, a football pitch, a softball pitch, a pavilion, and a cricket pitch. Chichester City F.C. are based at the park. Culture Chichester Festival Theatre is located in south end of the park Gallery File:Theatre Oaklands Park Chichester.jpg, Chichester Festival Theatre Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya John Hidalgo Moya (5 May 1920 – 3 August 1994), ..., located in the park Fil ...
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John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays. Though his reputation has declined since, Fletcher remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration. Biography Early life Fletcher was born in December 1579 (baptised 20 December) in Rye, Sussex, and died of the plague in August 1625 (buried 29 August in St. Saviour's, Southwark). His father Richard Fletcher was an ambitious and successful cleric who was in turn Dean of Peterborough, Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London (shortly before his death), as well as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. As Dean of Pete ...
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Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, (née Plowright; born 28 October 1929), professionally known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career has spanned over seven decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy and two BAFTA Awards. She was the second of only four actresses (as of 2020) to have won two Golden Globes in the same year. She won the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a New Play in 1978 for Filumena. Early life Plowright was born on 28 October 1929 in Brigg, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Daisy Margaret ( née Burton) and William Ernest Plowright, who was a journalist and newspaper editor. She attended Scunthorpe Grammar School
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John Neville (actor)
John Reginald Neville, CM, OBE (2 May 1925 – 19 November 2011) was an English theatre and film actor who moved to Canada in 1972. He enjoyed a resurgence of international attention in the 1980s as a result of his starring role in Terry Gilliam's ''The Adventures of Baron Munchausen'' (1988). Early life and education Neville was born in Willesden, London, the son of Mabel Lillian (''née'' Fry) and Reginald Daniel Neville, a lorry driver. He was educated at Willesden and Chiswick County Schools for Boys and, after service in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before starting his professional career as a member of the Trent Players.Hayward, Anthon"John Neville: Shakespearean actor and director who became a theatrical force in Canada " ''The Independent'', 26 November 2011 Career United Kingdom Neville was a West End star of the 1950s, hailed as "one of the most potent classical actors of the Richard Burto ...
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André Morell
Cecil André Mesritz (20 August 1909 – 28 November 1978), known professionally as André Morell, was an English actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s. His best known screen roles were as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the BBC Television serial '' Quatermass and the Pit'' (1958–59), and as Doctor Watson in the Hammer Film Productions version of ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (1959). He also appeared in the films ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' (1957) and '' Ben-Hur'' (1959), in several of Hammer's horror films throughout the 1960s and in the acclaimed ITV historical drama '' The Caesars'' (1968). His obituary in ''The Times'' newspaper described him as possessing a "commanding presence with a rich, responsive voice… whether in the classical or modern theatre he was authoritative and dependable." Biography Early life and career Morell was born in London, the son of André and Rosa Mesritz.Pixley, p. 30 ...
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Keith Michell
Keith Joseph Michell (1 December 1926 – 20 November 2015) was an Australian actor who worked primarily in the United Kingdom, and was best known for his television and film portrayals of King Henry VIII. He appeared extensively in Shakespeare and other classics and musicals in Britain, and was also in several Broadway productions. He was an artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre in the 1970s and later had a recurring role on '' Murder, She Wrote'' as the charming thief Dennis Stanton. He was also known for illustrating a collection of Jeremy Lloyd's poems ''Captain Beaky'', and singing the title song from the associated album. Early life Michell was born in Adelaide, and brought up in Warnertown, near Port Pirie. His parents were Joseph, a cabinet-maker, and Alice (née Aslat). Educated at Port Pirie High School, Adelaide Teachers' College and Adelaide University, he began his career as an art teacher and made his professional acting debut in 1947 in the come ...
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Kathleen Harrison
Kathleen Harrison (23 February 1892 – 7 December 1995) was a prolific English character actress best remembered for her role as Mrs. Huggett (opposite Jack Warner and Petula Clark) in a trio of British post-war comedies about a working-class family's misadventures, The Huggetts. She later played the charwoman Mrs. Dilber opposite Alastair Sim in the 1951 film '' Scrooge'' (US: ''A Christmas Carol'', 1951) and a Cockney charwoman who inherits a fortune in the television series ''Mrs Thursday'' (1966–67). Life and career Born in Blackburn, Lancashire, Harrison was brought up in London, her father having become borough engineer for Southwark. She was educated at Clapham High School before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (1914–15). She spent some years living in Argentina and Madeira before making her professional acting debut in the UK in the 1920s. Harrison made her stage debut as Mrs. Judd in ''The Constant Flirt'' at the Pier Theatre, Eastbourne in 19 ...
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Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Ann Harris (born 19 September 1927) is an English actress. She is the recipient of such accolades as a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. In 1986, Harris was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Harris began her stage career in 1948, before making her Broadway debut in 1952. For her New York stage work, she is a four-time Drama Desk Award winner and nine-time Tony Award nominee, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1966 for ''The Lion in Winter''. On television, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for the BBC serial ''Notorious Woman'', and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for the miniseries ''Holocaust'' (1978). In film, Harris portrayed Aunt May in Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Man'' (2002), ''Spider-Man 2'' (2004), and ''Spider-Man 3'' (2007). For her performance in ...
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Joan Greenwood
Joan Mary Waller Greenwood (4 March 1921 – 28 February 1987) was an English actress. Her husky voice, coupled with her slow, precise elocution, was her trademark. She played Sibella in the 1949 film ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'', and also appeared in ''The Man in the White Suit'' (1951), ''Young Wives' Tale'' (1951), ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' (1952), '' Stage Struck'' (1958), '' Tom Jones'' (1963) and ''Little Dorrit'' (1987). Greenwood worked mainly on the stage, where she had a long career, appearing with Donald Wolfit's theatre company in the years following World War II. Later, after the war, her appearances in Ealing comedies are among her memorable screen appearances: '' Whisky Galore!''; as the seductive Sibella in the black comedy ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1949); and in ''The Man in the White Suit'' (1951). She opened ''The Grass Is Greener'' in the West End in 1952 and played Gwendolen in a film version of ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' released in ...
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Fay Compton
Virginia Lilian Emmeline Compton-Mackenzie, (; 18 September 1894 – 12 December 1978), known professionally as Fay Compton, was an English actress. She appeared in several films, and made many broadcasts, but was best known for her stage performances. She was known for her versatility, and appeared in Shakespeare, drawing room comedy, pantomime, modern drama, and classics such as Ibsen and Chekhov. In addition to performing in Britain, Compton appeared several times in the US, and toured Australia and New Zealand in a variety of stage plays. Life and career Early years Compton was born in Fulham, London, the sixth and youngest child and fourth daughter of Edward Compton (1854–1918), actor and manager (whose real surname was Mackenzie), and his wife, the actress Virginia Frances Bateman (1853–1940) daughter of the actor Hezekiah Linthicum Bateman, of Baltimore, US. One of her brothers became well known as the author Compton Mackenzie. Trewin, J. C.br>"Compton, Fay (real ...
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Lewis Casson
Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC (26 October 187516 May 1969) was an English actor and theatre director, and the husband of actress Dame Sybil Thorndike.Devlin, DianaCasson, Sir Lewis Thomas (1875–1969) ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' Early life Lewis Casson was born at 18 Alfred Road, Birkenhead, Cheshire, the third of the seven children of Laura Ann née Holland-Thomas (1843–1912) and Thomas Casson (1843–1911), a bank manager and organ-builder. Both his parents were Welsh. When he was young the family moved to Denbigh in Wales and Casson was educated at Ruthin School. In 1891 Casson's father decided to make a business of his hobby of building organs, and the family moved to London. Casson soon began working in his father's business. When this failed, he began studying chemistry, but then trained as a teacher at St Mark's College, Chelsea, where he gained a teaching certificate. In 1900 Casson's father began another organ making business and Lewis worked in ...
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Anton Chekov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics."Stories ... which are among the supreme achievements in prose narrative.Vodka miniatures, belching and angry cats George Steiner's review of ''The Undiscovered Chekhov'', in ''The Observer'', 13 May 2001. Retrieved 16 February 2007. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress." Chekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of ''The Seagull'' in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 189 ...
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