How do you find new writing for the stage? A few Irish theatre companies have succeeded in developing and nurturing new playwrights by taking the initiative and working with writers rather than waiting for scripts to arrive. Belinda McKeown reports.

What's new in Irish theatre? Not much, it might have seemed in recent weeks, as productions of Beckett, Keane, O'Casey and MacIntyre vied for Dublin audiences. Not much, that is, save for the even heavier air of disillusion that has descended in the wake of significant cuts in Government funding.

With some companies facing the prospect of staging only one play this year, box-office revenues are more crucial than ever for survival - and the proven route to those revenues is via the familiar and the reliable, not the strange and the new. It would seem Irish stages have never offered terrain less fertile for the development of new writing.

And yet new writers are hard at work. The week's post brings every major Irish theatre company about four unsolicited manuscripts - adding up to hundreds of aspiring playwrights each year.

Unfortunately, most theatre companies are now so taxed by the other contents of the postman's bag - administrative duties to attend to, bills to pay, news of cutbacks to deal with, cancellations to accept - that what promise may lie in the slush pile can simply gather dust.

But in the past two years, stirrings in the theatre scene have disturbed that dust, and the results of those stirrings are beginning to emerge. There is Druid's current production of The Good Father (which opened for a run at Project in Dublin last night, starting a national tour) the work of young Listowel writer Christian O'Reilly, sourced through the company's Debut scheme. There is the imminent run at Andrews Lane Theatre of the Fishamble production of The Buddhist of Castleknock, a play developed by its writer, Jim O'Hanlon, through one of the company's regular playwriting courses (the next nine-week course begins on April 16th). There is the upcoming Shorts festival from the same company, featuring 14 10-minute plays from new writers.

There's the prospect, next month, of a six-week course for writers chosen from the National Theatre's heap of unsolicited manuscripts. There's the hum of young playwrights at work on commissions from companies such as the National Theatre, Rough Magic, Red Kettle and Corcadorca.

Luckily for beginning playwrights, some Irish companies are committed to easing their entrance into Irish theatre. Loughlin Deegan, literary manager of Rough Magic - and himself a playwright whose early work was developed, by Red Kettle - feels that young writers need all the help they can get.

"The Irish theatre scene is an incredibly closed shop," he says. "Getting their foot on the first rung of the ladder is the biggest challenge to young writers in this country."

Deegan criticises the "unsolicited trap", believing it has long failed Ireland's novice writers. The general approach to incoming manuscripts needs to be more structured, he says.

Another playwright cum literary manager, Gavin Kostick of Fishamble, agrees. "We are trying to become more active in reaching writers quicker, before they invest all their time and energy in a full script, a play that might not work out."

Aware of the need for a more systematic approach to new writing, Rough Magic in 2001 launched its Seeds initiative, inviting playwrights to submit manuscripts, then honing the submissions down to six candidates for commission. The process saw each writer being assigned a prominent director, including Max Stafford-Clark and Conall Morrison, as mentor and brought through a series of workshops, discussions and private readings.

The plays were presented as works-in-progress at Project arts centre in Dublin in May of last year. Deegan reports that all six of them now look likely to progress to full production.

At about the same time, other companies launched competitions and commissioned plays. Frameworks were in place that would, it was hoped, facilitate a more fruitful approach to the weekly haul of scripts. Instead of looking for that perfect play, literary managers began to look for inklings of potential, for "that middle scene, that interesting character, that sparkling piece of dialogue", as Deegan puts it.

Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid, knows more than most, after the extraordinary success in the 1990s of the previously unknown Martin McDonagh, what gems an in tray can hold. "We read a play to see if it's good," she says, "But also, even if it's not a good play, to see if the writer is interesting."

Hynes's current protégé is a case in point: having devoted only a week's rehearsal and a semi-staged production to his play It Just Came Out in 2001, Hynes and her literary manager, Charlie MacBride, were interested in seeing what else Christian O'Reilly might come up with.

They snatched up The Good Father in January last year, staging it to acclaim within six months, for the Galway Arts Festival.

The "accelerated development", as O'Reilly calls it himself, of his play is not the norm, however. A point of contention between companies interested in developing new writing is the question of just how fast, and how far, that development should go.

While Deegan advocates the workshopping process as invaluable, saying it prevents what he sees as the all-too-common problem of rushing a production to the stage before it is ready, relying too much on workshops and readings may prove restrictive for the playwright in the long run by substituting for full productions.

Young writers have mixed feelings about workshopping - indeed, of working with companies in general. There are risks for the writers: of having their words overwritten by the style or the agenda of a company, of encountering domineering directors eager to impose their visions on work or of having the originality of their script tamed in the name of commercial appeal.

But such mixed feelings are less the mark of ingratitude than the inevitable outcome of the battle between independence and adjustment that makes up the journey to the professional stage.

Companies agree that an essential aspect of that journey is the fostering of new, and enduring, relationships. It's enduring investment that counts, says Jocelyn Clarke, commissioning manager at the Abbey. Writers need to make international contacts, to tour with their work, to travel for the sake of seeing what other playwrights are doing and of feeding their imaginations.

And there is another initiative, closer to home, that Clarke feels would benefit young writers - the resources to travel as far as their nearest theatre. "There are a lot of playwrights here who don't go to the theatre," says Clarke, "who can't afford to or who just don't go. It would be nice if every theatre in the country was funded by the Arts Council to give free tickets to playwrights."

It would be nice, but in the current economic slowdown it's probably not going to happen. Production is costlier than the provision of workshops and readings and, in the wake of Arts Council cuts, long-term commitment to and investment in new writers have become very difficult.

It's a problem that Red Kettle director Ben Hennessy knows well. Budget cuts of about 47 per cent mean that, without alternative funding, this year's hoped-for productions of plays commissioned from young Wexford writer Paul O'Brien and from Derryman Brian Foster are likely to be postponed.

Nor can the company hope to maintain the touring that Hennessy views as a crucial part of nurturing writers, for bringing them to wider audiences. The need for companies to rethink how they source funds, even to consider corporate sponsorship of new writers, is pressing.

Another significant part of the process of nurturing new writers is preparing them for the ordeal of opening night, when, according to Diane Hanrahan of Corcadorca, "they nearly regress to childhood with the terror". Facing an audience alone is an intimidating prospect, but greater still is the fear of the critics. "You are never the same after a review," says Ger Bourke, the playwright, "whether you are praised to high heaven or have the ground scorched from under you."

Clarke, himself a former critic, is particularly aware of the effect on the climate for new writing of the standard and style of criticism - which companies and writers agree are poor in Ireland.

Critical dismissal can destroy a young playwright, but misplaced praise can be just as damaging. In this country, it would seem, there is too much of both, with critics widely neglecting to acknowledge signs of talent in new work in favour of scathingly swiping at its shortcomings.

But Clarke, drawing attention to the lack of professional training, the low pay and the scarce column inches afforded to critics in Ireland, suggests the parochialism and parsimony that stifle playwrights are also stifling critics. "You have to sit through the opening night," Gavin Kostick tells the playwrights on Fishamble's courses. "It's very tempting to go to the pub and drink the night away, but you will never know then if what is written about your play is right or wrong. If you are there, paying close attention to the audience, watching what is going on, you won't be destabilised by reviews."

For Kostick, even if reviews are not glowing or box-office returns are not recordbreaking, the personal artistic satisfaction that writers get from seeing their plays being staged can tide them over.

All the same, try citing artistic satisfaction as a reason why your new-writing initiatives should be generously funded. With critical response and audience figures playing significant parts in the Arts Council's assessment of the "excellence" of a company's work, it may not get you far.

The council supports the development of new writers, through awards for commissioning and through bursaries for individual artists, but does not ring-fence the development aspect of theatre companies' work. This means the cuts that have curtailed those companies' activities for 2003 are likely to impact hard on new writing.

Of course, young writers and theatre artists can get by, even thrive creatively, on very little money, and traditionally have done; witness the explosion of independent theatre companies that achieved brilliance on a shoestring in the bleak 1980s.

But as young writers become mature writers their needs change, and drawing talent into the theatre sector and keeping it there have become urgent matters of recognising those needs.

Garry Hynes dare not underestimate the danger of the current funding crisis. "This is a very serious situation we are in, with a very wide impact. It makes theatre and everyone in it cautious. This affects the stuff of theatre and what will be made. This is going to go all way up the line; be clear about that."

Hynes believes that what is lacking is a fundamental respect for the value of talent, a refusal at government level to pay for what it still wants us to celebrate, which will have serious consequences if not checked.

"If we do not nurture our new theatre, there will be no tomorrow. And tomorrow is all that counts. The canon is there, but unless we keep investing financially and emotionally, and make a leap of faith with writers, there is no future."