It seems that the Abbey's artistic director, Ben Barnes, is not content to set his sights on shifting the theatre - what lies within must shift as well. The National Theatre is set to advertise the role of director of the Peacock Theatre, which formerly fell within the remit of Barnes himself. This new appointee will take over the programming of the Peacock (after Barnes's programming has run out) and develop an autonomous role for the studio theatre within the National Theatre.
Three other new positions will be advertised: those of casting director, commissioning manager and literary officer. The creation of the latter two posts will mean a rejigging of the literary department, where Judy Friel is currently literary manager, with Aideen Howard as dramaturg.
The Arts Council has confirmed that the Gate Theatre's grant for 2000 was a third of its grant for the previous year: down from £600,000 to roughly £200,000. The theatre went most of the year with no Arts Council funding at all, although this did not emerge until last November. The theatre and the Council could not, apparently, reach agreement as to what the theatre's role should be, and what its level of public funding should be, given its commercial success.
The council says it is in discussion with the Gate as to what its funding should be in 2001 "and beyond". The Gate's Marie Rooney confirms that the theatre is still in discussion with the council; she says that it will make a statement soon on its relationship with the Council.
It will be fascinating to see how this shakes out. The Gate may put together a three-year plan which the council will be prepared to fund at a level consistent with the Gate's previous high level of funding. However, the direction of the theatre, which has secured the premiere of Conor McPherson's new play, Port Authority, next month, for London, not for Dublin, as well as artistic director Michael Colgan's outside project as one of the two producers of the Blue Angel/Tyrone Productions for RTE and Channel 4 Beckett on Film season of films, may cast doubt on this. It may be that the theatre takes a much more independent - and much more independently-funded - line in the future.
The Laurence Olivier nominations have yielded still more acclaim for the Lyric's production of Marie Jones's off-beat comedy, Stones in his Pockets Both actors in this two-hander play, Sean Campion and Conleth Hill, are nominated in the Best Actor category. Frank Mc Guinness's Dolly West's Kitchen, produced by the Abbey Theatre and directed by Patrick Mason, is in the running for the Best Play award, after huge success in the West End. Pauline Flanagan, who plays the crusty old matriarch in McGuinness's play, is nominated as Best Supporting Actress.
Mark-Anthony Turnage (composer) and Amanda Holden (librettist) have been jointly nominated for their production of an operatic version of O'Casey's The Silver Tassie. Opera Ireland will stage its own production of the work, directed by Patrick Mason, from March 31st.
The awards will be presented on February 23rd at the Lyceum Theatre, and the ceremony will be broadcast on BBC 2.
DraIocht, Blanchardstown's new arts centre, under artistic director Teerth Chungh, has announced its management team. Helen Chamberlain, formerly of the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London and the London Bubble Theatre Company, will be general manager; Barry McKinney, formerly of the Hawk's Well, Sligo and the Dublin Theatre Festival, will be production manager; Emer McGowan, formerly of Galway's Babaro, will be outreach officer; and Carissa Farrell, currently the national programmer for IMMA, will be visual arts officer. As we have previously reported, the Abbey's Madeline Boughton will be marketing, press and public relations manager.
