The Abbey will stage a new play by Tom Murphy early in the new year. The Wake, which opens on January 28th, is, says the Abbey's artistic director, Patrick Mason, related to Murphy's novel, The Seduction Of Morality. Jane Brennan and Stanley Townsend will feature in the cast, and it will be directed by Mason himself. This play was originally to have been staged in Britain by the Royal Court but production difficulties arose; the Abbey was always going to stage the Irish production.

Next year the Abbey and Peacock will stage a large number of new plays: Declan Hughes's Twenty Grand will open in February, Gary Mitchell's As The Beast Sleeps in June, Bernard Farrell's Kevin's Bed in April, and the autumn schedule will include Marina Carr's By The Bog Of Cats and Michael Harding's 1798.

The word - from the Abbey itself - is that the advertisement for the post of executive director of the Abbey Theatre will appear in this newspaper tomorrow. Speculating who might take up the job, Mason mentioned "the usual suspects, who we both know", but also the possibility that the incumbent might come from a management position in a different industry.

The "usual suspects" most often mentioned in pub conversations as candidates for the new job are: Fergus D. Linehan, of the Dublin Theatre Festival; Siobhan Bourke, of Rough Magic Theatre Company; Richard Cooke, of Bickerstaffe Theatre Company; and Laura Magahy, of Temple Bar Properties. Marie Rooney of the Gate Theatre and Jerome Hynes of Wexford Festival Opera are usually considered too ensconced in their own very successful empires to wish to wander.

It's all just idle talk, perhaps, but like much idle talk, it's interesting.