Artscape: Will the carrot-and-stick approach work at today's vital emergency general meeting of the Abbey Theatre's Advisory Council?
The council - Abbey shareholders and, in effect, its owners - must vote itself out of existence to facilitate the governance changes that will establish a new company to replace the National Theatre Society.
The proposals - first reported in The Irish Times on Tuesday - are for a company limited by guarantee and have been put forward by the Minister for Arts on foot of a three-way dialogue between his department, the Abbey and the Arts Council.
The stick is obviously the potential demise of the Abbey through loss of funding: the Arts Council has used quite forceful language to make clear that it would not continue to provide subsidy without the kind of radical structural change now on the table.
The Advisory Council might taste the carrot in the cleverly devised format to allow for some future involvement by former shareholders - on the initial selection committee that will choose the majority of the new board, and as "honorary associates".
In all there will be 31 votes deciding the fate of the Abbey today. As well as the 22 members of the council, two of whom will represent the Ministers for Arts and Finance, all nine members of the theatre's board of directors are, as shareholders, entitled to vote. It can be safely assumed all nine and the government nominees will vote in favour of the reform proposals.
But what of the Advisory Council, where there are likely to be a number who will oppose the proposals? While it may be emotively difficult for some to participate in the extinction of their own role, the majority is unlikely to create a situation where future funding, as well as the handover of Government bail-out money for the current debt, is put in danger.
In fact, the shareholders would then find themselves in the difficult position of being responsible for this debt.
Since this is the only plan in town to save the Abbey, the staff representatives (Peter Rose and archivist Mairead Delaney) seem unlikely to vote against. It is understood all staff members recently received a letter from the Minister acknowledging the difficult circumstances under which they are currently operating and assuring them they would have an input into the change process.
Equity, the actors' union, is hardly going to go against it and it has three representatives, Peader Lamb, Clive Geraghty and Kathleen Barrington, all former Abbey actors.
Then there is former SIPTU president Des Geraghty, who has been playing a key role in the management change programme already successfully underway, as well as the Taoiseach's close associate Paddy Duffy.
Other members of the Advisory Council are: Conor Bowman; Frank Cuneen; Clare Duignan; John Fairleigh; John Lynch; Tomás MacAnna; Patricia McBride; Muriel McCarthy; Jimmy Murphy; Donal Nevin; Edna O'Brien; Ulick O'Connor and Pat O'Reilly.
Apart from the matter of voting to hand over responsibility for the Abbey to a new company, other thorny issues could arise and one of them is future funding of the theatre. Some of those who will be present today are known to be unhappy with the tone of some recent statements from the Arts Council, which they see as a bullying tactic by an organisation that in the past has failed to provide proper levels of support.
Meanwhile, the process of putting the house in order continues in the Abbey itself, where an audit of the first six months of this year is currently taking place. It is expected that a business plan will follow this latest financial assessment and discussions will take place with the Arts Council and John O'Donoghue's department about what the realistic levels of funding for the National Theatre should be.
But first, there is today's mountain to climb, or maybe it will turn out to be nothing more than a molehill.
Druid turns Aran tropical
John Millington Synge may not have spent much time squatting in the Fir Bolg fort of Dún Chonchúir during his sojourn on the Aran island of Inis Meain, but Galway's Druid Theatre Company is hoping that audiences will be able to hear his words "echoing out around the stone walls where he created them" when it stages the Synge Cycle in the walled fortress above Baile an Teampaill next month in September.
Outdoors? Absolutely, the company says, although contingency plans have been made for Halla Naoimh Eoin in the event of the fickle west coast weather not being favourable.
Immediately after the company's run at the Edinburgh International Festival, it will transport the entire cycle - cast, props, words and all - to Inis Meain for performances on Friday, September 9th and Sunday, September 11th from 2pm to 10.30pm.
"Synge often read, wrote and dreamed there. So when we were planning our visit to the islands it seemed to be the absolutely right thing to do," says the company's artistic director, Garry Hynes.
Most of the production will be performed in daylight, but lighting will be arranged for dusk and nightfall. Supper will be served during one of the breaks, and a sustenance voucher for restaurants within walking distance of the fort can be purchased with the ticket.
Audiences are advised to wrap up warmly, bring a blanket, and not to argue over seat numbers. Performance tickets for the Synge Cycle cost €35 (concession €30), and €15 meal vouchers are optional. Tickets are available from Druid at 091-568660.
Facelift for Ulster Museum
The recent announcement that the Ulster Museum is to be the subject of a major redesign and facelift sounds like good news, writes Aidan Dunne. And so it is, given that a radical overhaul is in prospect, with funding of some £11.5 million (€16.9 million) lined up - £7 million (€10.3 million) in departmental funding and about £4.7 million (€7 million) from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The museum, which houses substantial art, historical and science collections, desperately needed substantial rethinking. Work is projected to commence towards the end of 2006.
All of which is admirable, but it does seem to put paid to any possibility that Belfast will ever get its own national gallery of modern art, as mooted some years back by Michael Holohan, then director of the Ulster Museum and its umbrella organisation of museums and galleries, Magni. The art collections are expressly tied into plans for the revamped museum.
The Ulster Museum became a national institution in 1962 and, 10 years later, inaugurated a substantial extension. That extension, though ambitious, has not dated well, and is less than ideal in many respects.
The museum is the third arts institution in Belfast to receive substantial funding recently. Some £21 million (€31 million) has been pledged to the Grand Opera House and the Lyric Theatre.
Meanwhile, there are reports that the Royal Ulster Academy has already been looking elsewhere for a venue for its annual exhibition, traditionally held in the Ulster Museum.
Claremorris opens up
Andrea Schlieker, former assistant director of the Serpentine Gallery and curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, is adjudicator for this year's 28th Claremorris Open Exhibition in Co Mayo, writes Lorna Siggins.
Schlieker is curator for the Fourth Plinth Sculpture Project, Trafalgar, and co-curator of the 2005 British Art Show. She is taking time out to judge a record number of submissions for the Claremorris show next month, encompassing painting, print and photography, sculpture, installation, video, light and sound performance.
A total of 27 artworks have been selected and both public and private spaces will be used for the exhibition. The prize fund is €8,000 this year, with €3,000 earmarked for the best emerging artist. On September 3rd, writer and former Irish Times columnist Nuala O'Faolain will open the exhibition, which is co-ordinated by Jarlath Burke and runs for three weeks.
A "vital showcase for artists - a diverse and inspiring exhibition" is how BrendaMcParland, head of exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art has described Claremorris, while David Thorp, curator of contemporary projects at the Henry Moore Foundation in London, credits it with "truly pushing at the edges of the art world".
For more information, visit www.coearts.org