Artscape: While The Shaughraun continues to run at the Abbey Theatre, its director, John McColgan, has announced he is to step down from the Abbey board, writes Belinda McKeon.
The news, broken by Peter Crawley in the latest edition of Irish Theatre Magazine's on-line newsletter, comes at a time when all eyes are on the recruitment drive for Ben Barnes's successor. Asked by Crawley why the board has decided to advertise for a new "director" rather than an "artistic director" (Barnes's current title), McColgan said the change is intended to make the position available to "somebody who has proven expertise in the world of theatre: a producer, an entrepreneur".
Both words neatly sum up the man responsible for the international success of Riverdance, or the director of The Shaughraun, which has proved the biggest hit at the Abbey in recent years and looks set to tour North America (including Broadway) in 2006, under the wing of McColgan's company Abhann Productions. So is McColgan putting his name in the hat for the job of director? "I am not," he told The Irish Times this week.
McColgan's departure from the board, he says, was always going to happen: having served a four-year term, which began in 2001, he was asked by the board to remain on for the centenary year to chair the fundraising committee established to finance Abbey celebrations for 2004. There was, he says, "no reason" why the knowledge of his impending departure was kept within the Abbey until now. Other ex-board members, such as playwright Bernard Farrell, extended their terms by as many as four years, but McColgan says five is an adequate number for him to have served. "I think a board should change regularly," he says, "and I have four or five productions in pre-production next year."
Part of this business will include the continued examination of whether The Shaughraun can feasibly tour internationally in 2006. McColgan points out that there is "no definite clarification" on whether this will take place but that, should it go ahead, it will not be a question of "taking the Abbey jewel and running with it". He says his instructions to those doing the negotiating have been to ensure that the share of profit going to the Abbey will advantage the theatre, falling "at least within the industry norms, if not more".
This will come as encouraging news to the Abbey, who (through Ben Barnes) asked McColgan to direct The Shaughraun and refrained, according to McColgan, from producing any possible tour because of the expense and risk involved. All the same, the industry norm is hardly a huge earner for a theatre in its position, falling between three and seven per cent of gross profit.
The financial farce that was the centenary year concluded, McColgan is now free to step clear of his responsibilities to the Abbey. But he leaves behind a board that still has many questions to answer about its handling of the crisis.
No funds in North
The northern arts community is angrily facing up to the fact that this Christmas is unlikely to be a merry one, writes Jane Coyle. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and more than 100 organisations and practitioners have joined forces to protest against the prospect of what they are calling "death by a thousand cuts".
The draft budget for Northern Ireland, released for consultation by the NI Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, is proposing a reduction in arts funding of 10.4 per cent over the next three financial years - from the current £14.5 million to £13 million by 2007. It would constitute a painful blow to an already beleaguered and under-funded sector, with companies, cultural programmes and large arts organisations being forced to contemplate closure and redundancies.
At present, the cultural sector makes a vital contribution to Northern Ireland's economy, supporting 29,000 jobs and securing an annual turnover of £900 million.
ACNI chairwoman Rosemary Kelly underlined the council's determination to rally support for the sector: "It is a measure of our unwavering support to the arts community and our conviction that the anticipated financial cuts will cause irreparable damage to the sector - and consequently to the region's prosperity as a whole. As a result of chronic under-funding, the arts infrastructure in Northern Ireland is extremely fragile. Any further tightening of our meagre resources will threaten the fabric of our artistic economy. Many of our hard-pressed artists and arts organisations . . . will struggle to survive and the quality and quantity of locally-produced writing, visual arts, theatre and music will suffer."
Another major concern is that Northern Ireland continues to lag behind England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland in terms of public support for the arts. Per capita spending in the North is currently at £6.45 per year, compared with £8.34 in England, £7.95 in both Wales and Scotland and over £9 per capita in the Republic.
Opposition has been galvanised like never before across the sector - from individual artists to major organisations like the Grand Opera House, the Belfast Festival at Queen's University and the Ulster Orchestra, whose chief executive David Byers said the proposed cuts would "cause damage to large organisations like the Ulster Orchestra. It will mean losses of jobs and will negate and undermine the artistic excellence which has been developed over past decades."
Community Arts Forum director Heather Floyd endorsed Byers's comments: "Access to the arts is not a privilege or bonus - it is a fundamental right . . . This cut will make it impossible for that right to be realised, particularly for the most disadvantaged and excluded individuals and communities within our society, depriving them of the positive influence the arts have had across Northern Ireland".
Get the picture
The country is coming down with Christmas art shows right now, and lots of people will hopefully awaken on the 25th to find a work of art under the tree. Full Circle, a group show of more than 200 leading Irish artists, established and new - including Brian Ballard, Mary Rose Binchy, Lola Rayne Booth, Stephen Brandes, David Crone, Felim Egan, Mark Garry, Joy Gerrard, John Gerrard, Anthony Hobbs, Jesse Jones, Colin Martin, Makiko Nakumura, Isabel Nolan, Janet Pierce, Linda Quinlan, John Shinnors, Mark Swords and Andrew Vickery - will open at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios on Wednesday, December 15th at 11 a.m.
The twist? The artist behind each work isn't revealed until it has been bought, and everything is priced at a flat rate of €360, great value for many of the artists' work, a bargain for others. This follows the successful 50-50 show last Christmas and is the last such show of its kind at the TBGS. The proceeds are divided equally between the artists and the gallery. The show continues until Monday, December 20th, closing at 6 p.m. (7 p.m. on Thursday). Tel: 01-6710073.
Trunk Show, which runs at King House in Boyle, Co Roscommon until December 16th is an exhibition with a difference. That difference is explored in an accompanying seminar, Artist as Traveller, which takes place in King House today. The exhibition, devised by American curator and artist Ann Shostrom, aims to make an itinerant international exhibition that is cumulatively built up, venue by venue. The artists' brief is relatively simple: what they make must be light, compact and easily transportable. The contribution of each location must fit into a trunk in order to travel on to the next location.
Furniture designer Laura Mays has made a trunk for the Irish section, drawn from counties Leitrim, Roscommon and Cork - which is curated by Cliodhna Shaffrey (in her swansong as Leitrim's curator-in-residence), Philip Delamere and Sarah Iremonger. Among the participating artists are Christine Mackey, Megan Eustace, Anna MacLeod, Clea Van Der Grijn, Seamus Dunbar and Jana Riedel, Dave Kinane, Stephen Brandes, Helen O'Leary and Paul Chidester. With the contents of the pre-existingAmerican trunk, the show will travel on to the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh next February and the Irish trunk will be selected from the exhibited pieces.
Shostrom's idea works on a number of levels. Contemporary artists are often nomads: at one extreme you have art world celebrities shuttling between high-profile international events, and at the other you have relatively impoverished idealists who see themselves as part of an international artistic community and are enthused by the experience of diversity and difference.
Today's seminar is a chance to explore the various ramifications. There is a fitting geographical diversity among the speakers - Hou Hanru (China), Huseyin Bhari Alptekin (Turkey), Ellen Driscoll (US), Shin Egashira (Japan) and Julie Bacon (England).
It is an ambitious project and it's good to see King House in Boyle - a fine, spacious, versatile building - exploiting some of its considerable potential as a cultural venue. Tel: 071-9620450/21593; email: businesspark@eircom.net