Chichester Festival Theatre's Festival 2018, the second season under the leadership of Artistic Director Daniel Evans and Executive Director Rachel Tackley, includes classic comedies, contemporary dramas and revivals as well as two musicals and a family show.
Actors featured in the season include Rufus Hound, Penelope Keith, Amanda Root, Oliver Ford Davies, Susannah Fielding, Caroline Quentin, Charles Edwards, Paul Jesson, Clare Burt, Joanna Riding and Gary Wilmot.
There will be new plays by Charlotte Jones, Bryony Lavery and Laura Wade. Natalie Abrahami, Michael Blakemore, Tinuke Craig, Sean Foley, Kate Hewitt and Dale Rooks will direct their first Chichester shows alongside returning directors Daniel Evans, Jonathan Munby, Alan Strachan and Samuel West.
Revivals include Noël Coward's Present Laughter, debbie tucker green's random and generations, Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden, Wycherley's The Country Wife, Michael Frayn's Copenhagen and Cock by Mike Bartlett plus the musicals Me and My Girl and Flowers for Mrs Harris.
The new plays are The Meeting by Charlotte Jones, The Watsons by Laura Wade and Bryony Lavery adapts David Walliams's The Midnight Gang with music and lyrics by Joe Stilgoe.
Chichester Festival Youth Theatre presents Rufus Norris's version of Sleeping Beauty in the Festival Theatre for Christmas.
Daniel Evans and Rachel Tackley said, "this season, we will achieve a 50:50 gender balance in our acting company and we're pleased to have over 20,000 tickets available at £10 in the Festival theatre now available at every performance and the price of tickets for our rapidly growing Prologue scheme for 16- to 25-year-olds remains at £5.
"During 2017, we reached 62,000 people aged 0 - 90 through our community and education outreach programmes; among these, our recently launched CFT Buddies scheme providing a companion for elderly or socially isolated people. Finally, we are delighted that three Festival 2017 productions will reach a wider audience in London this year".