Chichester Festival Youth Theatre presents
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Book by Anna Ledwich Music & Lyrics by Richard Taylor
WELCOME
Welcome to our final production of 2017, a brand new version of Beauty and the Beast. The work of Dale Rooks and her Learning, Education and Participation (LEAP) team is at the heart of what we do at Chichester Festival Theatre. The central role of Chichester Festival Youth Theatre was illustrated on 30 November 2017, when the cast of Beauty and the Beast gave a joyous performance on the Festival stage for HM The Queen, including a scene from the play you are about to watch.
DANIEL EVANS AND RACHEL TACKLEY PHOTOGRAPH BY TOBIAS KEY
For the young people taking part, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience; for all of us watching, it was a day of enormous pride in their achievement and an uplifting and moving testament that the future of CFT is in very good hands. For many people, Christmas wouldn’t be complete without CFYT’s annual production. Beauty and the Beast follows a valued tradition of commissioning leading playwrights and composers to adapt much-loved classics. Writer Anna Ledwich, whose relationship with CFT began in 2008 as a trainee
director - she was the first recipient of the Heller Fellowship Programme - and lyricist and composer Richard Taylor have given us a fresh and captivating look at this timeless tale. Chichester Festival Youth Theatre is the largest youth theatre in the country with over 800 members in nine locations throughout the region. Our collaboration with them and their schools is one aspect of our learning and community work; another, equally important, aspect is our engagement with older people at risk of social isolation. If you haven’t yet seen our recently launched Ageless campaign, which aims to ensure that theatre and live art remain at the heart of people’s lives, please pick up a leaflet or go online. We hope that you enjoy today’s performance and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
Artistic Director Daniel Evans
cft.org.uk
Executive Director Rachel Tackley
TASTE FOOD & DRINK EVENTS
Chichester Festival Theatre presents a mini season of delicious dinners, entertaining evenings and gin-tastic get-togethers from our caterers Caper & Berry.
WINING & DINING
GIN TASTING EVENINGS
‘CALL MY WINE BLUFF’ DINNER With Hennings Vintners Brasserie, 2 Mar 7.30pm Tickets £39.95
THE BIG GINS TASTING EVENING Pinkster and Brockmans Minerva Bar & Grill, 16 Mar 7.30pm Tickets £19.95
WISTON ‘30 MILE’ WINE TASTING DINNER Brasserie, 23 Mar 7.30pm Tickets £59.95
THE CHICHESTER GIN TASTING EVENING Chilgrove, Tom Cat and Silent Pool Minerva Bar & Grill, 6 Apr 7.30pm Tickets £19.95
ARGENTINIAN & CHILEAN WINE TASTING With Hennings Vintners Minerva Bar & Grill, 29 Mar 7.30pm Tickets £19.95
GIN LOVERS TASTING EVENING Portobello Road, Sipsmith and Blackdown Minerva Bar & Grill, 13 Apr 7.30pm Tickets £19.95
MOTHER’S DAY LUNCH Brasserie, 11 Mar from 12.30pm Adult £19.95 Child £11.95
cft.org.uk/taste
Chichester Festival Youth Theatre presents
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Book by Anna Ledwich Music & Lyrics by Richard Taylor
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED Anna Ledwich and Richard Taylor introduce their new adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. ‘Someone once said there are only six plots in the world that simply keep getting retold. I’d say one of them is definitely Beauty and the Beast.’ Richard Taylor, composer and lyricist of this brand new version of the familiar tale – originally published as a French novel in 1740 – warms to his theme. ‘You could say Jane Austen wrote a Beauty and the Beast and called it Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennett and nasty, scarred Mr Darcy; Pemberley is the big mansion. Jonathan Demme made Beauty and the Beast for adults and called it The Silence of the Lambs: Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter in his prison. Stephen Spielberg made the space version for kids and called it ET. They’re essentially the same ingredients and plot. So our spin on it is only the latest in a long line of versions.’ Arguably the most pervasive of those versions, for modern audiences at least, are Disney’s original animated tale and the recent live action movie. But Richard and playwright Anna Ledwich set about making their own with relish, informed but in no way limited by the fact they’d been commissioned specifically for CFYT. On the practical side, ‘I co-directed the Youth Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol with Dale Rooks in 2008,’ Anna Ledwich says. ‘I knew there would need to be enough parts for a wide range of performers; that it had to have scenes for a chorus as well as the lead actors; and clear story-telling as well as the moments of magic which people are looking for in a Christmas show. So I had all that in my head when I began working on Beauty and the Beast, because I’d had the real privilege of watching ANNA LEDWICH
a production being made on those terms. ‘The standard of performance and production with the Youth Theatre is really astonishing. I never had a voice in my head saying “perhaps I’d better keep it simple here or ensure it’s not too complex.” I always knew there’d be a real relish from the Youth Theatre to get stuck into it.’
‘Adults are slightly quicker to know where they think their limitations are – kids never do’ Richard Taylor (whose early successes included Whistle Down the Wind for National Youth Music Theatre) fully concurs that composing for young people as opposed to adults ‘makes absolutely no difference at all. I think it’s because their brains are used to taking in new information all the time, at college, at school. They’re constantly being given things that are slightly beyond their grasp and they always do conquer it; that’s the wonderful difference between working with adults and kids. Adults are slightly quicker to know where they think their limitations are – kids never do. ‘It’s the story that leads everything and if the story demands young people, you still approach the story in the same way.’ Richard has previously composed music for no less than three productions of Beauty and the Beast, although this is the first with songs. So how have he and Anna gone about giving this iconic story a unique Chichester angle? ‘The wonderful thing about Beauty is that it’s a blank canvas. You’re given the bare bones