Playography na Gaeilge

The Irish Theatre Institute recently launched Playography na Gaeilge, a comprehensive online database of Irish language plays premièred from 1975 - 2009.

The database currently contains detailed information on a total of 256 plays by playwrights including Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Liam Ó Muirthile, Alan Titley, Antoine Ó Flatharta, Darach Ó Scolaí and Joe Steve Ó Neachtain.

The freely accessible and searchable website includes translations and adaptations by writers such as Seán Mac Mathúna, Gerard Humphreys, Michael Harding and Gearóid Ó Cairealláin and includes work produced by companies past and present specialising in Irish language plays including Aisling Ghéar, Branar, An Damer and An Taibhdhearc.

The launch of Playography na Gaeilge marks a significant development for Irish Theatre Institute's Irish Playography resource.

Brass Shillelagh Drama Award

The Boyle Arts Festival is now accepting submissions of unpublished one-act plays with a maximum length of 15 minutes from amateur playwrights for its inaugural Brass Shillelagh Drama Award.

Five winning finalists will be selected to perform on the night of Saturday 31st July during the Boyle Arts Festival.

You will be required to stage the play with your own cast. You need to have your own props On the final night an overall winner will be selected based on the performance and the transformation from script to stage.

By using your own cast you can realize and perfect your vision.

We will provide

The audience, the Judges, advertising, prize money of €300 to the winner, €50 to the four runners up and the prestigious Brass Shillelagh itself.

The closing Date is the 15th June 2010. Further information about the award and how to apply are available on the web site.

Yale Drama Series 2010

The Yale Drama Series Prize for Emerging Playwrights is a major new international playwriting competition.

The winner of the annual competition is awarded the David C. Horn Prize of $10,000, publication of his/her manuscript by Yale University Press, and a staged reading at Yale Rep. The Yale Drama Series and David C. Horn Prize are funded by generous support from the David Charles Horn Foundation.

Submissions must be original, unpublished full-length plays written in English. Translations, musicals, and children’s plays are not accepted. The Yale Drama Series is intended to support emerging playwrights. Playwrights may win the competition only once.

Submissions for the 2011 Competition must be postmarked no earlier than June 1 and no later than August 15, 2010.

More information on the rules of the competition and how to enter are on the web site.

Dublin Scriptwriters Group

Ever thought about joining a writers' group?

Being a writer can be, by its nature, a fairly solitary existence so being part of a group can be invaluable. As well as the companionship, it is also important to have someone (who isn't your mammy) with whom you can share your writing, get (honest!) criticism from and bounce ideas off.

The Dublin Playwrights and Screenwriters Group (apologies for the long title) is one of two groups which meet every two weeks in Filmbase in Temple Bar, Dublin, to discuss our stage and screen writing projects and generally chat about what's going on in the writing world. If you think a group would be helpful to you and your writing, we would like to invite you to come along to one of our meetings to see if you would like to join.

You can get in touch with us through the IPSG (info@script.ie or 01 6709970) and we can arrange for you to come to the next meeting.

Happy writing!

Paul FitzSimons
Group Co-ordinator
Dublin Playwrights and Screenwriters Group

Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2010

The Dublin Gay Theatre Festival will be happening from May 3 - 16 in venues across Dublin City centre.

The programme of features, comedy and musical theatre includes Eight World Premières, Eight European Premières and Four Irish Premières. This year the festival includes productions from Ireland, UK, USA, Spain, South Africa and Australia, with a particular emphasis on new writing from emerging playwrights.

Highlights from the programme include The Laramie Project (USA) a play which recounts the brutal kidnap and murder of Mathew Sheppard, Kiss the Women (South Africa), a brave and deeply moving exploration of growing up as a black lesbian in South Africa, Loaded (USA) a no-holds barred look at internet sex, identity and ageism, Exiles (UK) a fresh and unique perspective on James Joyce's only play, Working Late (Ireland), a coming out comedy set in today’s economic crisis, Under the Rainbow (Ireland) a musical journey through the many lives of actress and entertainer Liza Minnelli and Drags Aloud (Australia) Joan Rivers support act that’s part Glee, part Scream, with a health dose of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Festival Director, Brian Merriman, said "This year we break through many barriers with our diverse programme of theatre that seeks to dialogue culturally with mainstream society." He added that festival was "delighted to welcome so many Irish companies to our programme this year. Playwrights as young as 18 year old Aaron Rogers were successful amongst the largest ever cohort of Irish applicants."

Dublin Arts Bursary

Dublin City Council is looking for applications for its Arts Bursary of €4,000, which can be used to fund studies at an advanced level or the development of work/ professional skills.

Artists, resident in Dublin City Council’s administrative area, can apply for a Bursary in Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Drama and Literature. One Bursary will be awarded in each discipline.

Application forms, guidelines and criteria may be obtained by contacting:The Arts Office,Dublin City Council,The LAB, Foley St, Dublin 1.
Tel: 222 7850 or email: maura.carty@dublincity.ie

Deadline for receipt of applications is 5pm Friday May 14th 2010. Only applications in hardcopy form will be accepted.

Application forms and information on how to apply are on the web site.

iad-T in the Park, April

The last event in the iad-T in the Park season is taking place this Saturday 24th April, at the the Tea Rooms in the People’s Park, Dun Laoghaire. The theme is: Play 4 Today (drama).

At noon there will be an Improvisation and Storytelling Workshop followed at 2pm by a Presentation by Annie Ryan and Michael West of The Corn Exchange, the theatre company behind the Dublin Theatre Festival's hit Freefall.

The events are organised by Mia Gallager, the 2009/10 IADT Writer in Residence.

McGuinness Play on TV

The Stage reports that Sky Arts has announced its successor to its Theatre Live! series, which saw six novelists make their playwriting débuts in 2009.

This year it's called Sky Arts Playhouse - Live, and will bring new work by established playwrights to the screen, including Irish playwright Frank McGuinness, whose credits include Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me.

The plays will be broadcast live every Wednesday from June 9, with each production being previewed at the Riverside Studios in the UK for four nights prior to transmission.

As with Theatre Live!, there will be a special company of directors and actors formed for the series, which will be overseen by Sandi Toksvig as artistic director, and Pip Broughton, who is creative director.

Toksvig said: “With Playhouse - Live, we’re staying true to the theatrical experience whilst simultaneously ensuring that we successfully marry the components of theatre and television that make each experience so unique. We’re thrilled to have such an extraordinary range and calibre of playwrights on board, and are delighted about partnering with the Riverside Studios to give the creative teams an opportunity to preview each play.”

The schedule is:

• June 9; The Typist, by Rebecca Lenkiewicz; directed by Bijan Sheibani.
• June 16: Ghost Story by Mark Ravenhill, who is also directing the play.
• June 23: Hens by Alia Bano; directed by Peter Gill
• June 30: Crocodile by Frank McFuinness; directed by Toby Frow.
• July 7: Ensler's Here by Eve Ensler; directed by Josie Rourke.

West End Remains Popular

According to the Hollywood Reporter theatre is still proving very popular in the UK despite the recession, and the latest figures reveal that attendance at the West End in London hit 14 million last year and box office revenue made a record £500 million.

The current success owes to several factors, not least of which is a high standard of excellence. Critics have joined the public in being generally bowled over by the range and quality of what has been presented of late.

Two more reasons for the growing appreciation of what's onstage: The lackluster state of British film and television means local talent is gravitating to the theater; and the development of well-trained directors.

Says Almeida artistic director Michael Attenborough: "TV in the U.S. is infinitely stronger. Most U.K. sitcoms are pathetically vulgar and crude."

Meanwhile, the current crop of top stage directors is among the most innovative and distinctive to date, with Rupert Goold ("Enron"), Michael Grandage ("Hamlet," "Red"), Howard Davies ("All My Sons"), Christopher Morahan ("The Caretaker"), Ian Rickson ("Jerusalem") and Nicholas Hytner ("London Assurance," "The Habit of Art") following in the footsteps of Sam Mendes, Richard Eyre, Stephen Daldry and Trevor Nunn.

Says Burns simply, "We train great directors." It shows.

Burns, who runs Nimax Theatres with U.S. producer Max Weitzenhoffer, adds: "Not only are more people coming, they're paying more money to see the plays and musicals. Last year, it was a coincidence that so many plays came to fruition in one performing year. It was very much the year of the play. But that doesn't mean the musicals were struggling -- it means the plays did better."

The Cant, Can

The winner of the inaugural McGuire International Playwriting Competition is Dublin writer Shay Linehan, for his play The Cant.

Shay is an IPSG member, and found out about the competition via our newsletter, and workshopped his entry at the IPSG's Dublin writers' group. He was also a nominee for the 2009 Zebbie Award for Best Radio Script. Currently, Shay is the director of Deilg Inis Living History Theatre Company, a professional theatre company based in Dalkey, Ireland and engaged at Dalkey Castle and Heritage Center.

The world première production of The Cant will open the Irish Classical Theatre Company's 20th Anniversary Season at the Andrews Theatre, Buffalo, NY from September 9 – October 3, 2010.

Creative Thinking in May

FÁS Screen Training Ireland is running two separate day-long courses on Creative Thinking Techniques on the 5th of May 2010 and on the 6th of May 2010 in Dublin, which will be taught by Pam Relton.

The cost is €100, and the deadline for online applications is the 20th of April 2010.

Participant Profile:
This one day programme is aimed at all sectors of the film and television industry.

Course Profile:
Participants will hone their creative thinking techniques.
Topics will include:

• Creative thinking techniques
• Ideas generation
• Six thinking hats
• The Disney Strategy
• This course is supported by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/The Irish Film Board.

Young Playwrights Wanted

Tinderbox Theatre Company in Belfast is looking for applicants aged between 16 and 25 for its Fireworks – Young Writers Programme.

The Fireworks writers will be working with the actors in the Tinderbox Studio Ensemble. In addition writers will watch plays or readings and any Tinderbox productions that coincide with the programme, as well as read and analyse plays together.

Writers must be available in Belfast during a number of specific dates in 2010 - the information is on the web site.

To apply, you will need to send two pages of dialogue from a previous script (not written for this application), and a covering letter about yourself stating why you are interested in taking part in Fireworks, and your writing experience so far.

The deadline for entries is 3 May 2010

Writer's Seminar

An intensive five-hour writer's seminar will be held at the New Theatre, 43 Essex Street, Temple Bar by the novelist and playwright Paddy Kelly at 11am on Saturday the 10th of April.

The seminar/workshop will cover all aspects of creative writing based on and around character and storyline development in the novella, novel, stageplay and screenplay formats. Participants are encouraged to bring with them a current project of their own with a view towards developing the project to which ever level they seek.

The cost is €60 Euros and includes a three course lunch at Ciao Bella Roma.

To register please email paddy.incanto@gmail.com or ring 085 729 5190.

WTD: US Message

Here is the US Message by playwright Lynn Nottage for World Theatre Day:

It's been said that the role of an artist is to keep their eyes open, when everyone else's are shut.

It’s a beautiful and simple sentiment. We are cultural watchdogs. We stand at attention, observing and reacting. We excavate, uncover, interpret and unravel. We protect tradition and shape new ones. We look inward…and then outward to find ways to better understand our selves.

We live in a world that has become increasingly interconnected through the ascendancy of new media, yet paradoxically more fractured by racism, religion, politics and economics. Our venerated financial institutions are crumbling and petty partisan fights paralyze our governments. Our insatiable need for oil and precious minerals fuel deadly armed conflicts in places like Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Poverty and suffering have become givens in a world of abundance, and women continue to fight for basic human rights and dignity in most countries. Hate, not love, fuel religious revolutions, poisoning generations of young men and women merely searching for meaning. We look for solutions in the recycling bins, and turn on the television to drown out our woes. This is our world, shaped by our own design, chaotic and unruly, yet beautiful and infinitely fascinating.


As artists and global citizens, the world continues to demand our attention, and as such we must be intrepid explorers, daring to venture into uncomfortable zones to unearth difficult truths. We must be unafraid to look honestly at the human condition and try to come to terms with its contradictions and flaws. That means approaching our work not as journalists, but as fabulators, storytellers, breaking rules to help reimagine the world. We must be truthful, while spinning yarns. It is the paradox of our creative process that gives us access to places we dare not go in our everyday lives. It emboldens us to ask difficult questions about war, race, religion, poverty, love and hatred.

Theatre is a place where we can collectively share our laughter, shed our tears and loudly demonstrate our joy or frustration. Theatre has the incredible capacity to be soul healing; it allows both the audience and artist to purge toxins and exorcise collective demons.

I challenge all of us to sustain the complexity of our world; to invite a multitude of diverse voices onto the stage. We must open the doors and windows of our theatres to let the world in. It is our responsibility; it is our burden and our gift.

We are fabulators….we are cultural watchdogs.

WTD: International Message

Here is the International Message by Dame Judi Dench for World Theatre Day:

World Theatre Day is an opportunity to celebrate Theatre in all its myriad forms. Theatre is a source of entertainment and inspiration and has the ability to unify the many diverse cultures and peoples that exist throughout the world. But theatre is more than that and also provides opportunities to educate and inform.

Theatre is performed throughout the world and not always in a traditional theatre setting. Performances can occur in a small village in Africa, next to a mountain in Armenia, on a tiny island in the Pacific. All it needs is a space and an audience. Theatre has the ability to make us smile, to make us cry, but should also make us think and reflect.

Theatre comes about through team work. Actors are the people who are seen, but there is an amazing set of people who are not seen. They are equally as important as the actors and their differing and specialist skills make it possible for a production to take place. They too must share in any triumphs and successes that may hopefully occur.

March 27 is always the official World Theatre Day. In many ways every day should be considered a theatre day, as we have a responsibility to continue the tradition to entertain, to educate and to enlighten our audiences, without whom we couldn’t exist.

World Theatre Day 2010

World Theatre Day is taking place tomorrow.

World Theatre Day was created in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI). It is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centres and the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark this occasion.

Its mission is to promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts (drama, dance, music theatre) in order to consolidate peace and solidarity between peoples, to deepen mutual understanding and increase creative co-operation between all people in the theatre arts.

There will be events going on around the world during the day, which you can follow in the web site's blog.

Olivier Awards 2010

The Stage reports on the winners of the 2010 Olivier Awards in London this weekend.

Here is a selection of some of the winners - the entire list is on the web site:

* Best New Play - The Mountaintop by Katori Hall at Trafalgar Studios 1
* Best New Comedy - The Priory by Michael Wynne at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court
* Best Musical Revival - Hello, Dolly! book by Michael Stewart, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, based on the play ‘The Matchmaker’ by Thornton Wilder at the Open Air
* Best New Musical - Spring Awakening music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater, based on the play by Frank Wedekind at the Novello
* Best Revival - Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, directed by Debbie Allen at the Novello

Script Frenzy

Are you looking for a writing challenge? Why not take part in Script Frenzy, the international writing event?

The goal is to write 100 pages of original scripted material in 30 days - screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, and graphic novels are all welcome. It must begin no earlier than 12:00:01 AM on April 1 and cease no later than 11:59:59 PM on April 30, local time.

There are no entry fees, prizes or short-lists, just the satisfaction of finally getting that first draft down on paper.

To find out how to take part go to the web site and sign up.

New/Old Shakespeare Play

The Times reports that the play, Double Falsehood; or, the Distrest Lovers, first produced in 1727 as a lost Shakespeare play - but dubbed a fake - has been authenticated.

Yesterday that changed when The Arden Shakespeare, one of the best regarded scholarly editions of Shakespeare's plays, published Double Falsehood, endorsing its credentials and making it available in a fully annotated form for the first time in 250 years.

Next summer Double Falsehood will become more embedded in the canon when the Royal Shakespeare Company mounts a production based on it as part of the first season back at its revamped Stratford-upon-Avon home.

BBC Axes Friday Play

Yesterday The Stage reported that next year the BBC Radio 4 will axe its long-running drama strand, the Friday Play, as a result of budget cuts at the station.

The broadcaster’s commissioner for drama, Jeremy Howe, met recently with both radio producers and members of the Writers’ Guild of Britain to outline the station’s plans for drama going forward, including the decision to pull the Friday Play from 2011.

It has also emerged that the broadcaster will reduce the number of Friday Play dramas it commissions this year, with just 12 original dramas planned in the slot, compared with 20 last year.

A spokesman for the BBC confirmed the move, and said BBC Radio 4, along with other networks, is “trying to ensure it obtains the best possible value from its budget”.

“As a result, we have decided to decommission the Friday Play. This is in order to ensure we do not make ends meet simply by cutting deeper into the budgets of other drama slots. We intend to commission some of the dramas that would have run on Fridays in other drama slots across the schedule. In exceptional circumstances, we will run dramas on Fridays where there is no daytime slot that could accommodate the subject matter or treatment,” he said.

The spokesman added that the Friday Play slot has the smallest audience of any drama strand on the station, and he said Radio 4 “felt losing a single strand was preferable to risking the quality of drama output across the schedule”.

“The network’s commitment to drama remains strong and we will continue to commission nearly 200 single plays a year and more than 100 series and serials, in strands including Woman’s Hour drama, Afternoon Play, Classic Serial and the Saturday Play,” he added.

At his meeting with the WGGB, Howe is also believed to have told the guild that Woman’s Hour drama, which has traditionally nurtured new writing talent, was now looking to commission the “biggest and best writers”.