ArtScape:The winners of the 2006 Irish TimesTheatre Awards will be announced at a ceremony in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, on February 18th.
And the three judges for the 2007 awards, which will be presented early next year, have now been announced.
Madeline Boughton has worked with a range of arts organisations, including the National Theatre (Abbey and Peacock theatres), Project Arts Centre, Dublin Theatre Festival and Dance Council of Ireland. She is currently arts manager with the British Council in Ireland. She was a board member and former joint artistic director of Dublin Youth Theatre, where she directed several plays and ran workshops. She was chairwoman of Pan Pan Theatre from 2001 to 2003 and sits on the editorial board of the National Association of Youth Drama's publication Youth Drama Ireland.
John Fairleigh is honorary director of the Stewart Parker Trust for the encouragement of new playwrights in Ireland, and honorary director of the Ireland Romania Cultural Foundation. He is editor of two Methuen anthologies of Irish plays, Far from the Land (1998) and The Tiger in Winter (2006). He is a former member of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and chairman of its drama committee, a former member of the board of trustees of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast and a former shareholder of the Abbey Theatre.
Christopher Fitz-Simon was artistic director of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, the Irish Theatre Company, and the National Theatre, where he has also been script editor and literary manager. For more than 12 years he worked in RTÉ as a TV drama director. He is the author of many broadcast plays, a biography of Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards, and The Abbey Theatre: The First Hundred Years. A memoir of his Irish childhood during the Emergency will be published later this year.
Money, money, money
Of the gazillions being invested in the National Development Plan, earmarked for distribution in the twilight days of the current administration, it's heartening to see significant funds for arts and cultural investment. A briefing by Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue spelt it out: €800 million for tourism, €991 million for sports and €904 million for arts. It's an indication of the money sloshing around the economy, and how much has changed in a short time (remember the devastation that followed a €4 million cut in the Arts Council budget in 2003).
TheMinister described it as "the largest-ever Government investment programme for the development of arts and culture".
And going through the list of investment, most of it seems to be new money - not announced heretofore, including a load of investment for the national cultural institutions, such as: €70 million for the National Museum (central block, Asgard pavilion); €45 million for the National Library of Ireland (repository and extension); €45 million for the National Gallery of Ireland (refurbishment of historic buildings and improvements to the collection space); €45 million for Imma (improvements to the exhibition space); €30 million for shared storage facility for National Cultural Institutions; €20 million for redevelopment of National Archives premises; €15 million for the Natural History Museum; €10 million for the expansion of the Chester Beatty Library.
Also new is €16 million for National Spatial Strategy gateways infrastructure, €21 million for National Cultural Institutions (outreach, an elaborate plan for digitisation, etc). And of the €81m for the Access capital funding scheme in the NPD, 50m is new , while €30 million of the €145 million in the plan for the Film Board infrastructure is also new money. Other funding listed in the plan that has been announced previously includes €16 million for Theatre Royal; €7 million for the Gaiety Theatre; €26 million for the National Museum (general capital works); €23 million for the National Library (general capital works) and €288 million for public-private partnerships (the National Theatre, the National Concert Hall). It is noted that some of the capital funding that the department usually gets in the Estimates is "subsumed" into the NDP.
Everyman looks to spring
Plays and patronage were the combined theme at the launch of the Everyman Palace Theatre's spring season this month, with pride of place going to the premiere of a new show from Des Keogh and Rosaleen Linehan, a new adaptation of sculptor Seamus Murphy's Stone Mad, a new comedy from the Everyman Studio group of young writers, and a new sponsorship scheme designed to attract a royal family of Everyman supporters, writes Mary Leland.
This theme is based on the idea of the Palace as a regal location and provides corporate branding, promotional and entertainment deals along with an offer for private patrons of €700 worth of tickets for €250.
Artistic director Pat Talbot - currently busy with his touring production of Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol, which is at the Civic Theatre in Tallaght this week - said that the 20 per cent increase in audience numbers last year over 2005 provided a sure foundation for a policy dedicated to ensuring that Everyman becomes a substantial employer of theatre practitioners while blending the best touring productions with more home-produced presentations.
The union of Meridian's Johnny Hanrahan, Corcadorca's Pat Kiernan and the Everyman Palace itself, all working together for the first time in the April production of Stone Mad, is one indication of that policy; with Des and Rosie at Large as a preface to a nationwide tour in March another.
The Everyman Studio presentation Apocalypse, Then is written by Ciaran Fitzpatrick and John McCarthy and features Ray Scannell and Paul Mulcahy, while visiting events include the return of the Godot Company from London, Everyman's own production of Dublin Carol and Nightfall from the London Classic Theatre.
Unique to Everyman is the Three O'Clock Sunday Show, running on the last Sunday of each month from now until April and devised as a feast of variety entertainment featuring such local artists as MonMurphy, Paddy Comerford, and the Cork Tenors, with Michael Twomey (who will also direct the forthcoming Everyman and Rockwood production of John B Keane's The Field) as master of ceremonies.
And a new adaptation by John Retallack of Bridge to the Stars by Henning Mankell, best known for his bleak Swedish crime novels, is among the work to be performed during the two-day NT Connections festival of youth theatre when this collaboration between the Everyman and the National Theatre in London opens in May.• A taste of the critics abroad: Pan Pan's Oedipus Loves You, on tour in Canada, was described as "a very bizarre but fascinating rendition of the Oedipus story, which comes across a bit like [Canadian mockumentary series] Trailer Park Boysdoing the Passion play", according to Eugene Stickland of the Calgary Herald, who liked the "punk rock, garage band sensibility that allows them to tell the old story in a new and exciting way.
It felt like a wonderful 'intellectual' meal made extremely palatable for the audience and it was unlike anything the Calgary audience had seen before". Hugh Graham in Calgary's FFWDWeeklysaid it was "theatre so good you'll gouge your eyes out". (Come on, get a grip Hugh.)
• Culture Ireland advertised yesterday, nationally and internationally, for chie executive, amove the board has been working towards for some time. "An exciting opportunity for a highly qualified and committed person" who will "lead, shape and develop this new body to play a central role in Ireland's international cultural relations".
The salary scale is €80,408-€93,493. It's a great job for the right person. More details at www.cultureireland.gov.ie.