Dramatically filling an empty space

ArtScape:This week theatre director Michael Scott takes over the lease on what will be a new, short-term space for theatre in Dublin city centre.

The Empty Space, set to open in mid-September for Scott's production of Brendan Kennelly's version of The Trojan Women as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival, is a "found space", a large area within the Smock Alley Theatre buildings, formerly part of the Viking Adventure Centre and before that the church of SS Michael and John.

The venue is in what was the Viking village, in the lower part of the church; it incorporates part of the original city wall and is a listed building. Excavations have recently been carried out and it is planned to leave them for all to see. Scott is excited by the possibilities the space offers and plans to leave it basically as it is, adding lighting and seating from his now defunct SFX, and making it safe and comfortable for audiences.

The Empty Space is huge, and the final capacity, somewhere between 60 and 120 people, will be dictated by fire regulations. Actors and audience will enter from Exchange Street on the quays, and the audience will pass the open dressing room area.

Actor Fiona Shaw visited last week and was very impressed, says Scott, who hopes she'll work on something for the space. The venue will also be available to hire for other shows. Jean-Guy Lecat, Peter Brook's theatre design collaborator, who recently worked on the very successful Abbey auditorium revamp, will work with Scott on renovating and designing the space for The Trojan Women. Scott hopes his next production there will be a version of The Cherry Orchard, set in the changing Ireland of 1922. The set will involve laying a huge wooden floor throughout the whole area, linking actors and audience, with light defining the space.

Scott says such an atmospheric building allows the creation of the sort of "environmental theatre" he made in the 1980s in Project, where the theatre space is recreated as part of the set. And in the spirit of that he later plans to revisit Yeats's work, producing the Cuchulainn cycle, the plays Purgatory and The Dreaming of the Bones, and his epic Oedipus. He hopes to bring new energy to work that has so often been presented in an inaccessible way, but which he feels still resonates: "Yeats was very much a 21st-century playwright; he wrote for theatre of the future."

The €20,000 a set would have cost (the production got Arts Council project funding) if they hadn't a "build-in" one in situ will cover a year's rent to owners Temple Bar Cultural Trust. Scott is taking a lease until Patrick Sutton starts work on the whole building (which he's redeveloping as Smock Alley Theatre and home for the Gaiety School of Acting) in about six to 12 months, and then "the Empty Space disappears", although Scott hints plans can change. "Maybe if it works it'll continue as a venue". He added that Jean-Guy Lecat says he frequently works on theatre spaces that are supposed to be temporary but end up lasting 20 years.

Scott has a can-do attitude about the project: "I don't have 'no' in my vocabulary, I don't give up. I fight to make theatre, that's our job, to create an experience you can't get unless you go to the theatre."

A preview of Kilkenny treats

The programme for the 34th annual Kilkenny Arts Festival will be formally

launched at the new Shelbourne this week, but some details have emerged of the line-up, including Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator Samantha Power - who worked with Barack Obama in 2005-2006 - in the inaugural Hubert Butler lecture; a world premiere by New York avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines of Lee Breuer's challenging production of A Prelude to A Death in Venice; and the Norwegian Tord Gustavsen Trio.

The festival was programmed again this year by a selection of experts rather than a single artistic director, and brought to fruition by chief executive Geraldine Tierney. Colm Tóibín put together the literature strand, which as well as Power includes readings by Edmund White, Jonathan Coe and Claire Keegan. Tóibín will read alongside Eavan Boland, and there's an intriguing-sounding symposium on de Valera's legacy in establishing Ireland internationally.

Other theatre - programmed by Bedrock artistic director Jimmy Fay - includes contemporary New York dancer Sara Rudner with Irish Modern Dance Theatre in a world premiere of This Dancing Life, which lasts for four hours, allowing the audience to come and go. French physical theatre company Fiat Lux return, and Irish company Pan Pan present Oedipus Loves You.

The festival continues to put together a strong classical programme, in venues including St Canice's Cathedral and Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre, curated this year by violinist Catherine Leonard. She includes the Ulster Orchestra under conductor Adrian Leaper, and featuring American cellist Ani Aznavoorian; pianist Julius Drake performing with Irish soprano Ailish Tynan and oboist Nicholas Daniel; and young string ensemble the Carducci String Quartet in a couple of concerts.

Gerry Godley's selection of world and Irish music includes the Mingus Dynasty, as well as Dutch jazz singer Fay Claassen and jazz/folk singer Eivør Pálsdóttir.

EmerMcGowan's children's programme focuses on projects where children can - led by professionals - learn to act for screen; write, illustrate and bind their own books; compose their own music; and create works of art. The group 3epkano returns with live soundtracks to silent movies Battleship Potemkinand Metropolis. And there will be films tying in with Kilkenny hurling, and commemorating John McGahern.

Site-sympathetic rather than site-specific is the key to the visual art curated by Hugh Mulholland, with video from Bill Viola from the US, Jesper Just from Denmark, Amar Kanwar from India, and Mark Orange from Northern Ireland, and a film of UK experimental choir and performance artists Factotum, who also perform at the festival. Exhibitions include Irish landscapes artist Eithne Jordan, abstract painter Marie Hanlon, sculptors Cerith Wyn Evans (Wales), Maud Cotter (Ireland) and Antonio Riello (Italy).Polish street theatre company Teatr Ósmego Dnia will put on a free outdoor spectacle, and there will be other street performances, by Belgian aerial theatre company Compagnie du Mirador, and by Buí Bolg. See www.kilkennyarts.ie.

Naughtons nice to Belfast Lyric

Belfast's Lyric Theatre is in buoyant mood with the announcement of a £1 million (almost €1.5 million) donation from leading businessman Dr Martin Naughton and his wife Carmel, writes Jane Coyle.

Themoney, which constitutes the biggest personal gift ever made to an arts organisation in the North, will give a massive boost to the long-running campaign to raise funds for a new theatre on the banks of the River Lagan.

"This is a significant contribution, not only in quantity, but also in the sense that it may have a knock-on effect and set an example for others to follow," said Prof Sir George Bain, chairman of the Lyric's fundraising committee.

"The cost of the project is floating, because of inflation, but it currently stands at £16 million €24 million), of which we have raised around £14 million €21 million). I don't anticipate that we will have a problem raising the rest."

Martin Naughton is internationally recognised as one of Ireland's most successful business entrepreneurs and Carmel Naughton has served on the boards of a number of leading arts organisations. Both are well known for their generous support of the arts, North and South. They are the principal private benefactors of the Naughton Gallery at Queen's University Belfast.

"We have been inspired by the distinguished history of the Lyric, by the passion and creativity of the artists who work here, by the enormous impact which has within the community and by its exciting vision for the future," said the Naughtons. The Lyric is to name its planned new studio theatre the Naughton Studio. It will provide a flexible performance space for nurturing the creative talents of children and young people of all abilities and backgrounds.

Meanwhile, Belfast's OldMuseum Arts Centre (OMAC) has confirmed that Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep has accepted its invitation to visit the city in mid-August to lend her support to the new Metropolitan Arts Centre, which the OMAC trustees are building in the redeveloped Cathedral Quarter. It hopes that her endorsement will help close the £1.25 million (€1.85 million) gap in the funding, as well as raise the profile of the £16.5 million (€24.5 million) centre.