Daniel Evans and Rachel Tackley have announced Chichester Festival Theatre's 2017 season, the first under their leadership as Artistic Director and Executive Director, which will include new plays by Deborah Bruce, James Graham and Edna O'Brien.
The 2017 season combines classic and contemporary plays and musicals, wth actors including Sharon D Clarke, Omid Djalili, Marcia Gay Harden, Ian McKellen, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Brian J Smith and Richard Wilson on the bill.
Directors for the season will be Lisa Blair, Daniel Evans, Richard Eyre, Jeremy Herrin, Jonathan Kent, Michael Longhurst, Blanche McIntyre, Jonathan Munby and Dale Rooks.
There will be revivals of Alan Bennett's Forty Years On, Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth, Shakespeare's King Lear, Githa Sowerby's The Stepmother and Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests trilogy.
There will be two musicals—Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Caroline, or Change and Fiddler on the Roof—and three new plays—Quiz by James Graham, The House They Grew Up In by Deborah Bruce and The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien.
Chichester Festival Youth Theatre will present Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales at Cass Sculpture Foundation and for Christmas there will be a new adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.
Evans and Tackley said, "we are thrilled to introduce our first season at the helm of Chichester Festival Theatre and we're delighted to welcome those who are new to Chichester as well as the many who are making return visits.
It's a particular pleasure that some of the UK's most talented young designers and creative artists will be working on this year's productions, and we're also offering new opportunities for six assistant directors at the start of their careers".