The finalists in the RTÉ New Playwrights Awards 2003 chatted quietly before the speeches, writes Catherine Foley.
Shortlisted playwright Fiona McGarry, spoke softly with her mother Maureen McGarry, from Castlebar, Co Mayo. Another shortlist nominee, David Handy, was on holidays in France and so was represented by his mother and father, Olive and Liam Handy.
Cathal Poirtéir, a radio producer at RTÉ, was among those who pared down the 150 entries before handing over the shortlist of 17 to the final adjudication panel comprising novelist Julie Parsons, Dr Dermot Rattigan of the UCD Drama Studies Department and Laurence Foster, theatre director and former head of drama at RTÉ.
According to Dan Reardon, the producer in charge of the awards: "A lot of the plays dealt with media issues and up-to-the-minute events."
The award was established 21 years ago to honour the late P.J. O'Connor, former head of drama at RTÉ Radio 1.
"The basic material for a good national theatre of the ear is dramatic work that has been written specifically for radio," said Lorelei Harris, editor of features, arts and drama at RTÉ Radio 1. "The radio stage invites and urges us to embark on flights of the imagination, to transport the ear to another realm in a second or a minute, to engage the brain with a plethora of new ideas, unhampered by the necessary constraints of the visual."
Margaret Irish, a native of Kilmacow in Co Kilkenny, was the winner of the top prize of €3,000. Her play, Playing Russian, was "witty, stylish, extremely contemporary," the judges said.
The second prize of €2,000 was won by Leo Lynch, from Rathfarnham, Co Dublin for his play Mercy, "for its approach to a topical and contentious subject and the skill displayed in subtly interweaving three lives," said the judges.
Charlotte by Jean Pasley, a Dublin-based screenwriter, was the winner of the third prize of €1,000.
All three prize-winning plays will be produced by RTÉ Radio 1 for broadcast later this year.