Art Scape Deirdre FalveyWhen young director Selina Cartmell first met theatre director Julie Taymor in her apartment in New York, she says it was like being on a blind date.
She was under consideration for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and Taymor is the one person in the world Cartmell would most like to be mentored by. Taymor chose her as her protégée in this prestigious biennial programme that brings highly talented younger artists, at critical stages in their careers, together with recognised masters in a one-to-one year-long mentoring relationship.
Cartmell said this week that it's a privilege to be able to work with someone she really admires, singling out Taymor's integrity, and how her work straddles opera, theatre, film, as well as designing her own work. "She is a real theatre artist." Cartmell has already spent six weeks in LA and two weeks in New York with Taymor as she worked on the epic opera Grendel, which was inspiring and eye-opening; Cartmell is currently developing a new opera called Gas, with Donnacha Dennehy and Simon Doyle.
When she first got the e-mail saying she had been put forward anonymously for the mentoring project, she thought it was a hoax, and almost deleted it.
The 31-year-old British-born theatre director, who has been working and living in Ireland for a number of years, is one of six on the international programme. She is director of Siren Productions in Dublin, which she founded three years ago and whose production of Titus Andronicus (one of Shakespeare's least revered or produced plays, and which Taymor has also directed) stunned Dublin last December and won four Irish Times Theatre Awards, including Best Director and Best Production. She has made a rapid impression on Irish theatre, and is now directing Festen, based on the Dogme film and play, the Gate's Dublin Theatre Festival production, which runs from September 28th to October 14th.
O'Connor prize profile rises
Dedication to the short story will be measured by the stamina of participants in the Munster Literature Centre's programme for the five-day International Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival, which begins in Cork on Wednesday, writes Mary Leland. Even the presence of Richard Ford with his newest publication - a novel, as it happens - as the crowning public event can't overwhelm the literary riches to be unfolded over the long weekend, beginning with local writers on Wednesday night followed by a feast of foreigners.
In a way the festival as currently designed reflects inherited local rivalries, contrasting as it does the recognition of Sean O'Faolain through the awarding, on Sunday, of the Sean O'Faolain prize for a single story, (€1,500) with the high point of the festival being the international O'Connor prize of €35,000 for a new collection of stories in English. Centre director Pat Cotter hopes the festival will by now have outgrown this confusion and be regarded less as a homage to O'Connor and more as a tribute to the short story itself as a creative medium. Both longlist and shortlist bear witness to a growing recognition of the award and to the frequent, and possibly increasing use of the short story by novelists. Rose Tremain and Peter Stamm will be at the awards ceremony and most of the other shortlisted authors will give public readings, beginning with Haruki Murakami's biographer and translator Jay Rubin, followed by Nepalese writer Samrat Upadhyay on Thursday.
On Friday, Rachel Sherman and Philip Ó Ceallaigh will end a day that will also include previous O'Faolain winners Jon Boilard, James Moynihan and William Wall, with Evelyn Conlon and Emma Cooke reading later, while Saturday has a masterclass by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, a lecture on O'Connor's personal papers by Michael Steinman, the launch at Cafe Paradiso of William Wall's new collection of short stories, the introduction of Richard Ford's new novel, and a reading by Silke Scheuermann, one of the award judges. Inaugurated as part of the literary strand of Cork's year as European Capital of Culture in 2005 and now funded by Cork City Council in association with The Irish Times, the award was first won by Chinese writer Yiyun Li for her collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.
Belfast Festival to tough it out
It's been a bumpy road these past 12 months for the Belfast Festival at Queen's, what with a 50 per cent cut in revenue from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) and the appointment of a new management team - Michael Poynor and Graeme Farrow - charged with the unenviable task of making more out of less, writes Jane Coyle. Yet they are smiling through adversity, launching one of the most interesting programmes for some years, and registering a 60 per cent rise in sponsorship.
"We are spending more on artists this year," says artistic director Graeme Farrow. "While our core public funding is slightly down, we are making what we have go further. We are predicting a 50 per cent increase at box office, which has resulted in the encouraging rise in sponsorship."
The decrease in its core funding prompted the festival to seek other routes to ACNI support. As a result, it has secured 10 projects from its New Works programme, totalling £93,000 (€138,000), while an additional £43,000 (€63,750) from its Access programme has lit the touch paper under Crackers, the free outdoor firework spectacular, for the October 19th opening.
Among the new work is Holding Hands at Paschendale, a play for the Lyric by Martin Lynch; The Liverpool Boat, a musical drama by Marie Jones and Liverpudlian writer Maurice Bessman about mass emigration to Liverpool from the North; a major new poetry anthology, The Blackbird's Nest, whose launch will bring a starry gathering of Northern poets - including Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Frank Ormsby, Medbh McGuckian, Gearóid MacLochlainn and Ciaran Carson - to the stage of the Whitla Hall; and the world premiere of Goliath by Belfast composer Deirdre Gribbin.
Other highlights include the celebrated Argentine tenor José Cura directing the Ulster Orchestra; the National Theatre's The History Boys; and the RSC's production with Cardboard Citizens (a professional company that works with homeless people) of Timon of Athens.
But the star of the festival is likely to be the art nouveau Spiegeltent - similar to that in Dublin now for Fringe festival - in Custom House Square with cabaret, comedy, concerts, talks and torch songs.
"We have programmed events which simply could not be seen here at any other time of year," says Farrow. "There is a long game ahead of us, as our funding still lags way behind comparable arts festivals in the UK and the South. We need people to raise the bar with us and in return we will bring to Belfast the very best international artistic quality to be found."
The festival runs from October 19th to November 4th, tel: 048-90971197, www.belfastfestival.com
South Galway and Coole Park are preparing for the 12th Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering, which will be opened by her great granddaughter, Susan Sutherland, on September 29th, writes Lorna Siggins.
Keynote address will be given by Prof Kevin Barry of NUI Galway's English department. Dr Diarmuid Ferriter of St Patrick's College in Drumcondra, Dr Ger Fitzgibbon of University College Cork, publisher Colin Smythe, actor and director Sighle Meehan, and Lady Gregory biographer James L Pethica are also among the listed speakers.
There will be a significant family dimension to this year's event, as the subjects of Me and Nu - Lady Gregory's granddaughters, Anne and Catherine - have been captured on canvas by artists Jay Murphy and Brian Bourke. The painting was commissioned by the autumn gathering committee, and sponsored by another relative, Ted Kennedy, Lady Gregory's great grandson. The gathering takes place from September 29th to 30th. Details on the programme on 091-523948, e-mail tgmeehan@iol.ie
Meanwhile, in the west of the county, Clifden's annual arts week has just opened and among the many participants (including musicians Mary Coughlan, Tommy Fleming, Galway Baroque Singers and The Chieftains) will be Clifden's own comedian, Noel Faulkner. Also in the programme will be Aidan Dooley's Tom Crean, Antarctic Explorer. Philosopher and writer Dr John Moriarty's new book, Night Journey to Buddh Gaia, will also be published at a function with writer and broadcaster Aidan Matthews. For the programme of literary and poetry readings, music and drama, see www.clifdenartsweek.ie, tel: 095-21644.