ArtScape: To mark the centenary of the Abbey Theatre, two bursaries for writers-in-association have been awarded this year, writes Rosita Boland.
Usually, the award, sponsored by Anglo Irish Bank, and now in its 17th year, goes to one playwright. On Tuesday evening, playwrights Hilary Fannin and Mark O'Rowe were each presented with an €11,000 bursary at a reception at the Abbey.
The bursaries are awarded at the discretion of the Abbey Board; in other words, playwrights cannot apply for it.
"The award is both an acknowledgment of the achievements thus far of a writer and a way of helping a less senior writer on their way up," explained the Abbey's artistic director, Ben Barnes. While the bursaries are intended to help buy the writers time to work on new plays, they are not substitutes for payments for a play. So, the recipients will be paid separately for whatever new work they produce.
Hilary Fannin is only the second woman to receive the prestigious award; the other was Marina Carr in 1995. Her last play, Doldrum Bay, was performed at the Peacock in May last year. Other work includes Mackerel Sky, which was performed at the Bush in London in 1997 (and later by Red Kettle in Waterford) and two plays for BBC Radio 4. She told the audience at the Abbey reception that she will be using part of her award to cover the cost of childcare, so that she can work in the mornings.
Prior to the reception, Fannin said: "I have an idea for a new play: it's the story of what happens to two people over seven days. The draft is due in at the end of June, and I haven't written a word of it yet. Or rather, I have - it's all scribbled on notes around the house, on the backs of envelopes, scattered here and there."
Mark O'Rowe's theatre work includes Howie the Rookie, Made in China and Crestfall. He also wrote the screenplay for Intermission. Before the reception, he said he had just finished "a movie for the people who did Intermission", which is called Perrier's Bounty. He doesn't yet have any ideas for a new piece of theatre, but, as he said of the bursary: "They say poverty is a good motivator, but a few quid is better."
The first recipient of the award, in 1987, was Tom Murphy. Other recipients include Sebastian Barry, Frank McGuinness, Billy Roche, and Declan Hughes, who won it last year.
Festival plans survive fire
Disaster has struck Belfast's forthcoming Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, whose wide-ranging programme includes names such as comedian Dylan Moran, DJ David Holmes, political figures Alastair Campbell and Arthur Scargill, and former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, writes Jane Coyle.
Less than a fortnight before the festival was due to begin - on April 29th - its offices were gutted in a major fire, which destroyed the Victorian arcade it shares with an eclectic, close-knit community of small businesses and cultural organisations.
The fire broke out last Saturday night and swept through the listed 1930s building which houses North Street Arcade. The cause has not yet been established, although it is being treated as suspicious.
Nevertheless, in true "show must go on" spirit, festival director Sean Kelly declared: "This fire is devastating news, for us and for all the other tenants of the arcade. But we are determined to press on with this year's festival. I want to reassure the festival artists and people who have bought tickets that their events will be going ahead. We have established a temporary office and our website is keeping everyone up to date with the situation."
The festival office is now in the Newsletter's former premises, two doors along from the John Hewitt Bar in Donegall Street. The sole ticket outlet is the Belfast Welcome Centre at 47 Donegall Place, Belfast (tel: 048-90246609). Festival website: www.cqaf.com
Brainstorming Barnstorm
When Berlin-based playwright Volker Ludwig comes to Dublin next week, it will be to re-establish old contacts as well as to forge new ones, writes Sylvia Thompson. Ludwig is visiting to participate in a talk following the performance of an adaptation of one of his plays by children's theatre company Barnstorm.
Barnstorm's artistic director Philip Hardy and general manager Vincent Dempsey first encountered the award-winning playwright in 1984 when he took part in a workshop in Dublin for people working in children's theatre. On the same visit, Ludwig's company, GRIPS Theater, co-produced his play, Max und Milli (adapted by Bernard Farrell as 1, 2, 3 O'Leary), with Team Theatre.
"What we took from that show and workshop was a sense that this was serious theatre for children, with children's roles as the central ones," says Vincent Dempsey. "This way of seeing children as a serious audience dealing with their own world and the adult world has been a significant way of looking at children's theatre for Barnstorm ever since."
The adapted Ludwig play, 1, 2, 3 O'Leary, went on to be Barnstorm's first production for children in 1993 (revived in 1994 and 2000). The company's current touring show, Digger, Doc and Dee-Dee - adapted by Maeve Ingoldsby from Ludwig's original play, Bella, Boss und Bulli - was first produced by Barnstorm in 1996. The production's countrywide tour continues until mid-May.
Ludwig has written more than 30 plays for children and adults. He is the founder and director of Berlin's GRIPS Theater. Last year, he received the ASSITEJ award from the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People, an organisation linking professional theatre artists from 75 countries.
Ludwig will be joined in the talkback event by Philip Hardy, following a performance of Digger, Doc and Dee-Dee at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght on Wednesday, April 28th at 7.30 p.m. (box office tel: 01-4627477).
Abbey goes tabloid
It's all go at the Abbey this year, between the ongoing speculation about where the new theatre will eventually be built, and all those centenary events. You could refer to the theatre's latest abbeyonehundred venture as being one of stage-to-the-page, in a neat inversion of the usual saying. Stagetwo is the name of the Abbey's new quarterly magazine, brought out by its outreach and education department and aimed mainly at schools. Edited by Christine Madden, the new literary manager at Rough Magic, the full-colour magazine runs to 12 tabloid-sized glossy pages.
The first issue contains an interview with Seamus Heaney about his new version of The Burial at Thebes, currently running on the Abbey's main stage. The interview is complemented by critic Helen Meany's explanation of the use of legends in Greek tragedy to explore political issues, and her profile of Antigone. There are also pieces about their work by physical theatre director Michael Keegan-Dolan, voice director Andrea Ainsworth, and actress Ruth Negga; an extremely funny discussion about the art of writing by Peacock playwrights Eugene O'Brien and Stewart Carolan; and several other useful bits and pieces which help to demystify the theatre world. Stagetwo is €2, available from the Abbey bookshop, or by post from its outreach department (tel: 01-8872223), or e-mail stagetwo@abbeytheatre.ie
Facelift for Everyman
Rumours that Cork's Everyman Palace will close for the entire summer are false, although it is true that the main auditorium is to be refurbished and will close from June 14th until mid-July, writes Mary Leland.
Something close to €200,000 is to be spent on renovating the theatre's Edwardian interior, with particular attention paid to the pairs of boxes and their elaborate domed roofs. The giltwork on the ceiling and proscenium is to be cleaned and repainted, there will be new carpets and a fresh coat of paint for both auditorium and foyer, and the outside of the building will be painted. Cork City Council is providing €160,000 towards the cost, with the Heritage Council contributing €20,000, and €15,000 coming from the Department of the Environment Conservation Grant Scheme.
The Everyman Palace's artistic director, Patrick Talbot, will be using the interruption to introduce a new 40-seat studio space in the back-stalls bar. The programmes to be staged at each of the Everyman Palace's venues will be announced as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. Ithe meantime, along with the mainstream schedule, the new and popular concert series, Sunday Night at the Palace, designed to evoke the theatre's original identity as a "palace of varieties", will continue with The Good Old Days on April 25th and The World of Operetta on May 30th.
Musical gift for WIT
A bequest of a music library belonging to the late Dr Hans Waldemar Rosen has been made to Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). Dr Rosen amassed a collection of music manuscripts comprising thousands of volumes, from early music to baroque and avant-garde. While the library is dominated by choral music, it also includes first editions of orchestral, chamber, opera and instrumental music, as well as manuscripts by Irish composers such as William Wilson and Seoirse Bodley. There is also folk music from Spain, Germany, Finland, Sweden and the US.
Dr Eric Sweeney, head of the music department at WIT, said: "I succeeded Dr Rosen as choral director in RTÉ and I was very grateful to him when, as a young conductor, he gave me much valuable encouragement and advice. Music here at the Waterford Institute of Technology is very performance-driven and Dr Rosen wished that his collection would be positioned in the right place where it could be put to good practical use by up-and-coming musicians. We are profoundly honoured to receive such a gift, which will be of enormous benefit to our music students in the institute and will without a doubt be used on a daily basis."
Lyric drama opportunity
RTÉ's lyric fm is commissioning new radio drama and invites submissions from experienced writers. A 28-minute play will be recorded in the autumn as a part of this process, and other ideas will be kept on file for potential future development.