Chichester Festival Theatre, Hampshire
At Chichester, the audience and artists are all in the same room; there is no feeling of 'them and us', we share the space and share the dramatic journey. It is a special gift of these spaces that they offer a sense of one community, and particularly appropriate to the community inspiration which built them.
It means that the actors can't hide or fake - the acting has to be truthful, open, brilliant. And the audience can't sit passively in the dark as they do in a cinema, or in some traditional theatres watching action in another room on stage. They should feel involved, excited, moved - part of one community with the artists.