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The Boyle Arts Festival is now accepting submissions of unpublished one-act plays with a maximum length of 15 minutes from amateur playwrights for its inaugural Brass Shillelagh Drama Award.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Submissions must be original, unpublished full-length plays written in English.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 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.

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

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.

Apply for Arts Funding Online

The Arts Council has launched its new online services website so applicants can apply online for Projects and Travel and Training awards via the Internet.

Online services was developed to more efficiently manage funding applications and payments. This new website means that you can:

• Download application forms and guidelines;
• Create a profile for banking, tax and contact details (which you can reuse for other applications);
• Upload the completed application form(s) and up to 20MB of electronic supporting materials;
• Avail of a one-week deadline extension to complete online applications;
• (Where successful), submit a payment request or payment schedule with supporting documentation.

In the coming weeks we will be opening up applications for the Touring and Dissemination of Work scheme 2010 via online services. Details of the scheme will be published on our website next week.

How and when to register/signup for online services

We advise you to register immediately for online services as, for security reasons, it may take up to five working days to complete the entire process. We also advise you to submit your final application as early as possible to avoid the heavy traffic on the site in the final days before a deadline.

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.

The Practice of Writing

Novelist and dramaturge, Mia Gallagher, is running a course in the Irish Writers Centre called "The Practice of Writing", on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th March from 10.30am - 4.30pm.

There is no generic 'how-to' when it comes to writing. Each writer is different, with a different mesh of concerns, obsessions, interests, habits, challenges, strengths, fears, hopes and blindspots. All these various elements are what make up an individual practice. But a practice needs to be practised in order to get richer, more informed, more vital and, hopefully, generate more meaningful output.

This workshop is aimed at people who want to deepen their awareness of their writing process with a view to sustaining their writing practice in the long-term. Using elements which are key to the facilitator's own practice – reading, dialogue, field trips, dedicated writing time, entertainment and critiquing – participants will explore ways of generating material, engaging with content and form and challenging their own (and others’) received notions of writing.

The cost of the two-day event is €160 and can be booked online.

Kildare Grants & Bursaries

Kildare County Council is looking for submissions for its 2010 Arts Act Grant Scheme and Bursary Awards.

There is an array of grants and bursaries on offer, including the following which might be of particular interest to our members:

* Film Bursary Award
* Tyrone Guthrie Residency Bursary Award
* Drama League of Ireland Summer School Bursary Award

The closing date for all the grants / bursaries is 5pm on Friday the 19th March. Application forms can be downloaded from the web site.

McCarrick Wins New Writing Award

Irish playwright Jaki McCarrick won the 2010 PapaTango New Writing Award in the UK with her play Leopoldville.

The judges were:

* Ruth Carney (Associate Director Sheffield Theatres)
* Tamara Harvey (West End Director)
* Gene David Kirk (Artistic Director Jermyn Street Theatre)
* Jeremy Kingston (Times Critic)
* Tanya Tillet (Agent at Rod Hall)
* Tara Wilkinson (Producer Bush Theatre).

The world première will be staged at the Tristan Bates Theatre, Covent Garden, London WC1 from April 6th – April 24th 2010.

Breaking a 400-year-old Glass Ceiling

The Guardian reports that after 400 years a female playwright will finally have a work staged at what is now Shakespeare's Globe theatre.

The play is Bedlam by Nell Leyshon, and is a fictional portrait of the Bethlem – the London hospital for the insane – set during the mid-18th century gin epidemic.

Leyshon said it was a "great privilege" to be the first woman to have a play staged at the Globe. "It's a challenge and I'm quite aware of the fact," she said. "I have to be honest, it fed my writing; I thought I can't write a flabby play. I wanted to prove that women can do conflict, that they can write big structures, big stories because I've heard it too many times that women aren't as good at that."

Big Smoke's Drama Workshop

The Big Smoke Writing Factory is organising a one-day drama and writing workshop.

Big Smoke Writing Factory is delighted to offer this day long workshop in drama and creative writing, designed and facilitated by one of its founding members, Nicole Rourke. Nicole trained in theatre with Tmu-Na Theatre Company, Tel-Aviv, Israel. She has worked in professional theatre both here and abroad for many years, mainly as an actor but has also experience in writing and directing. On top of this Nicole is highly experienced as both a drama facilitator and a creative writing facilitator - a combination which makes for a very unique workshop experience.

When it comes to telling stories, drama is really where it all begins. After all, we learn to speak and play before we learn to write. Combining the two can help the writer to expand their powers of observation, imagination and language as well as add that dramatic element that may be lacking. This unique workshop brings drama to your writing in an immediate and effective way.

Queries regarding course content may be directed to Nicole either over the phone at 086-857-6705 or email: bigsmokewritingfactory@gmail.com

Entry fee: €75 for one full day