ArtScape: With four of its shows on the go, and having scooped three awards for Improbable Frequency at the Irish Times/ ESB Irish Theatre Awards, this is Rough Magic's moment.
The show won best production, best director for Lynne Parker and best costume design for Kathy Strachan. For Parker, in particular, things have been hectic. Recently she was directing The Life of Galileo during the day (it opens tonight at the Project in Dublin), rehearsing the new run of Gerald Murphy's Take It Away in the evening (it runs until March 10th at the Bush in London), and in spare moments casting The Sugar Wife, and doing some re-jigs with writer Arthur Riordan on Improbable Frequency. Elizabeth Kuti's The Sugar Wife opens in April at Project, while Improbable transfers to the Abbey on March 4th.
Nick Hern, the British theatre publisher, is publishing the script of Improbable to coincide with the Abbey opening. Incidentally, Nick Hern has a number of Irish playwrights on its books including Enda Walsh and Owen McCafferty. Walsh's The Small Things has just opened in London, premièred by Paines Plough, a leading new UK writing company. The world première of his new play, Pondlife Angels, which he's been working on with director Donal Gallagher, will be a highlight of Cork Midsummer festival. Nick Hern has also published Owen McCafferty's Days of Wine and Roses - his new version of J.P. Miller's play, which was filmed in 1962, opens at the Donmar Warehouse in London on Monday - as well as Scenes From The Big Picture, which was staged at the National Theatre in April 2003. This has just won Owen McCafferty the John Whiting Award for new theatre writing last month.
Stirring emotions
Louise Jeffreys, head of theatre at the Barbican in London, describes its annual BITE season as "work that marries dance, theatre and music in unexpected ways, explores what theatre could be, stirs emotions, is passionate, makes mischief and makes you smile". Little wonder then, writes Michael Seaver, that she immediately booked Michael Keegan Dolan's Giselle after seeing it at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2003. Reworked last April for performances in the US, the London performance opening on Wednesday retains the same cast, a logistical feat considering the geographical spread of the performers. "It's been difficult to remount productions," says Dolan. "It's not just the performers coming from all over the world but we need a lot of rehearsal space for the set." Another problem is the Arts Council's insistence that revenue funding must be used for new work rather than remounting previous productions. This is ironic since Dolan's company Fabulous Beast got a sizeable increase in its grant, presumably based on the success of Giselle.
A positive note
The Irish Baroque Orchestra was one of the organisations that suffered most severely from the Government's cuts in Arts Council funding in 2003, writes Michael Dervan. The orchestra, then known as Christ Church Baroque, had its Arts Council grant cut by more than half, and struggled for much of last year with a grant that failed to match its 2002 level in real terms. With an increase of more than 40 per cent this year, bringing the grant to €170,000, the orchestra is now looking to a more secure future. One of last year's achievements was to establish a festival in Ardee in November, and the orchestra has also developed a relationship with leading baroque violinist Monica Huggett, who can provide just the sort of leadership needed to stabilise and improve the orchestra's musical standards.
Huggett is back with the orchestra this week for residential rehearsal sessions at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig in preparation for a four-concert tour. The programme includes a number of rarities, a suite by Johann Bernard Bach, a cousin of the great Johann Sebastian, two of Rameau's Concerts en Sextuor (attractive transcriptions of the Pièces de clavecin en concerts), a suite from Lully's La Triomphe de l'Amour, and one of the Concerti armonici, long attributed to Pergolesi but now known to have been composed by a Dutch man, Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer. The tour opens at St Peter's Church in Drogheda on February 26th, and also visits Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford (February 27th), the Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle (March 1st) and the National Gallery in Dublin (March 3rd, with a 6.30 p.m. start). Further information at tel: 01-6337283.
Short and sweet
Beehive Theatre Company in Dingle has an ambitious four-day festival of new theatre shorts in early March, with public and private funding, and involving Beehive Theatre Company staff, seven playwrights, three guest directors, four musicians and five actors. Five Times Two is a four-day festival of 10 new short plays by established and emerging writers, selected from 102 submissions, and designed to offer production opportunities for innovative writing and to foster individual playwrights, as well as expanding the audience for theatre in the southwest. The two programmes of five short plays, each with live music composed by Beehive's Malcolm George, runs from March 3rd to 6th at Léirithe Lúnasa Studio, Cúilín, An Daingean. Scoil Ceoil An Earraigh, west Kerry's inaugural Spring School of Traditional Music kicked off last Thursday with a lecture and session featuring Éamon de Buitléir and Fear An Tí Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich. Ballyferriter is the home of this long-awaited spring school, and its emphasis is on teaching music. This year's team of tutors includes Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich on accordion and guitar, Cillian Ó Briain on uileann pipes, Aoife Grainbhéil on flute, Una Ní Chíosáin on fiddle, Cormac Ó Beaglaoich on concertina and Bríd Uí Bhriain on whistle. Róisín Ní Mhainnín will host a sean nós dance workshop. Further information at tel: 066-9155399 or 066-9156402.
Limerick is gearing up for the Little Oscars, where the top three plays from Island Theatre Company's schools' play challenge are staged along with the awards ceremony on March 5th. The primary pupils from the Shannon region staged their entries - the theme was Race Against Waste - in Island's competition in December. Meanwhile, rehearsals will get underway for their production of Under Milk Wood, where Dylan's huge cast of voices will by played by Jon Kenny and Myles Breen, directed by Terry Devlin; the show tours Ireland in April and culminates in Limerick in May.
They're calling it Nuts and Bolts and describing it as a bluffer's guide to classical music, promising to unlock mystery and strip away the mystique "often mistakenly associated with classical music". RIAM's new music appreciation and comprehension classes comprise a series of eight live interactive sessions presented by Brenda Wilkes are on Tuesdays from March 1st, costing €120. Nuts and Bolts follows the success of last year's Bravo, the music history class, which also returns from March 2nd, presented by by Deborah Kelleher. For further information, contact the RIAM at tel: 01-6325304.
And for potential music students, whether you live in Cahirciveen and want to play the ukulele, or in Tourmakeady and want to play the bassoon, Music Network recently launched a website www.learnmusic.info with a comprehensive directory of music teachers and music schools, with more than 500 entries from 32 counties, and information on 73 instruments ranging from piano and violin to Tibetan Singing Bowls and African drums.
Sarah Tuck has been appointed as development director to lead City Arts in Dublin over the next year and a half. She takes over at the helm from previous director Declan McGonigal (now working with INTERFACE at the University of Ulster) to lead City Arts through its next phase of development. The City Arts Centre has sold its (valuable) Moss Street premises and will shortly move to new administration offices. It will continue to programme arts events (such as In Full View, in O'Connell Street shop windows for St Patrick's Festival), and hopes to be avenue-based organisation again in 18 months' time. Tuck joins CA from LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) where she was director of communications and development and a member of the senior planning team.