MACNAS, the Galway based community arts and theatre company, is to move into a new purpose built "black box performance space early next month.
According to Mr Declan Gibbons, the Macnas general manager, phase one of the buildings project was nearly finished. Phase two, which will include workshop and office space, was scheduled to begin at the end of the summer.
Mr Gibbons was speaking yesterday at an open day in the company's Fisheries Field workshops to launch the programme of work for Macnas's 10th anniversary year.
The artistic director of theatre, Mr Rod Goodall, said it "had been a very long haul from painting disused buildings black". He added: "We welcome this new venue to Galway and we celebrate all the efforts that have gone into creating it."
He thanked the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Michael D. Higgins, city manager Joe Gavin, Arts Council member and Macnas co founder Paraic Breathnach and those he called "the ancients on the hill".
The first Macnas production in the "black box" space will be Rhymes of the Ancient Mariner, based on the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It will be a once off collaboration between Macnas and the Galway Arts Festival.
Macnas has also announced a new look for its annual arts festival parade - it will feature the work of different community arts groups from the city.
This year also sees an extension of the Macnas community outreach programme which Mr Pete Sammon, director of community arts described as the first step to improve visual arts awareness in Ireland.
Paying tribute to Macnas, the Mayor of Galway, Mr Micheal O hUiginn, made particular reference to its community arts programme. "The amount of work and the potential for the work Macnas were doing on a community level was very important."