IT HAS no Arts Council grant and no marketing budget, but a new theatre season running parallel to the Galway Arts Festival has energy in spades.
“Galway Loves Theatre” is not competing with the established festival, its director Páraic Breathnach emphasised yesterday. Breathnach, director of the Galway Arts Centre, was one of the key movers behind Project 06 five years ago, which attempted to broaden the scope of the established two-week event.
The concept behind this new event is to allow greater participation by Galway artists, Breathnach said.
Only one of two Galway Youth Theatre (GYT) submissions to this year’s arts festival was accepted, which effectively meant that the city-owned Nun’s Island venue was only booked for one performance a day.
“As an independent manager [of Nun’s Island Theatre], I have to make sure the theatre space is used and I have an obligation to make sure actors and playwrights get work,” Breathnach explained.
“We will be offering four of our own shows daily, plus the GYT show for the arts festival, which means five shows a day in the Nun’s Island venue from July 11th to 23rd,” he said.
Among highlights are Grenadesby Tara McKevitt, which would "shock both film director Quentin Tarantino and black comedy playwright Martin McDonagh", Breathnach said.
The highly popular comedy duo, Electric Bridget, will stage Chat Show, while Woody Allen's Writer's Block is also on the programme.
Meanwhile, the Colours street theatre group’s “fringe festival” runs until this Friday and it aims to provide both social action and drama events in its programme.
See: galwaylovestheatre.com and coloursfringe.blogspot.com
