Top accolade for Chichester Festival Theatre’s “unsung hero”

Theatre manager Janet Bakose is the winner of The Stage Awards Unsung Hero Award 2024 – and typically, she says she would never have gone to London to receive it had she known that that was why she was going to London.

Janet was nominated for the award by her colleagues who commended her for her “formidable work ethic and attention to detail” and also her “warmth of manner and dedication to the welfare of audiences and artists alike” plus her “innate modesty and self-effacement.” They added: “Quite simply, it is impossible to underestimate her contribution to the success and ethos of Chichester Festival Theatre. We would love her to finally receive the public recognition she deserves.”

Janet admits: “Kathy (Bourne, executive director of Chichester Festival Theatre) was next to me (at the ceremony) and she said ‘Shall I go first so that you can collect your thoughts?’ And she said that ‘If Janet had had any idea that this was why she was coming to London, she would have refused to come.’ And that's absolutely true. The only way I could actually do it was if it was a complete shock – which it was!”

Which sums up Janet’s approach.

“I'm very happy being behind the scenes and out of the spotlight. It is very clear in the theatre that there are a lot of large personalities that like to be in the spotlight but that has never been me. But I've always really loved being in the theatre. I programme the winter and for me it's about giving everybody a really good experience. It's about thinking who your customers are and making sure that they have a really good time so that they want to come back.

“I started in 1978 and was taken on to work in the box office for one season. I had another job to go to in the September which was working for the BBC, for Radio Brighton or Radio Sussex. I was very pleased to have got that job which was working on a new radio show about the arts. I was quite looking forward to it but when I did my first season here in Chichester, I absolutely fell in love with this place. There's something really special about the Festival Theatre. I think it was just so different for me. I had done some temping and I had not really enjoyed the work that I had done. I found it very boring and I just wanted something that was more interesting.”

The Festival Theatre certainly offered that: “When I joined the Festival Theatre my interview was with the box office manager but (long-serving CFT general manager) Paul Rogerson was in the background looking in, and when the interview was over he came in and introduced himself. That was so special for me. I was really interested in the business of selling tickets and why some shows sell and others don't and I worked very closely with Paul. When I left the box office I went to work with Paul and he spent so much time with me exploring how the winter season works and the importance of meeting the artists and making sure that they feel welcomed and going around the dressing rooms and all those little things that perhaps don't happen in the world so often now.”

Janet went on to become house manager and for around eight years she programmed the Minerva movies seasons: “I absolutely loved it and I still apply those rules now to the winter season. You’re not just looking after your core audience. You are trying to bring in the young people and the families but you're also wanting to offer something quirky that will bring in a new audience, and I just found it such a magical world to be doing that.”

Of course over the years she has seen a number of different artistic directors come and go at the Festival Theatre: “And I think the interesting thing is that they have all had their own personalities. They have all run the Festival Theatre in a different way and I like to think that I've got on pretty well with all of them. And then when Alan and Jonathan left (Jonathan Church and Alan Finch, artistic and executive directors 2006-2016), I said I didn't think I wanted to do another change of artistic and executive director but I have done two since.”

And Janet has certainly has got no plans to retire – especially now the theatre is pretty much back to normal post-Covid, a period which inevitably was the toughest and the most challenging era of her time at the theatre: “I think Covid caused such a huge breakdown in people's lives that it took a long time to encourage people back. People got out of the habit of going to the theatre. You need to fit theatre into your life and then you get hooked on it. It's just not like it watching a piece of film which won't change when you look at it. When you're watching theatre, there is a connection between the actors and the audience and I think that's a big part of what makes it so special.

“With Covid I was so sad leaving the theatre and it being empty. I remember the first time I came back to the theatre which was maybe in May-time it was so strange to come into a theatre that was not absolutely full of life and alive.”

But against that low point there have been plenty of highs: “I think one of the proudest times was when the Queen had a visit here and I was one of the team that helped arranged the visit and worked on the whole thing. And we all had lunch in the Minerva bar. Everything just went perfectly. Everyone worked so hard but nothing could have gone any better than it actually did.

“And there have been so many great productions that I have loved but another thing that makes me really cherish what I do here is when one of the shows I have programmed for the winter is full. You go in to watch and you can sense that the whole audience is so enthralled with what they're seeing – and that’s very special for me.”

So certainly retirement has little appeal for the moment.

“I have always been one of those people that have loved working. I have never minded how many hours I have done and I think that's just part of the whole ethos of the theatre to make everyone feel happy and welcome and that's one of the things that I really love about it.”