Features

Cripping up - Copping on

Cripping up - Copping on

‘In Peeling I wanted to create women who were witty, sexy, complex human beings who made difficult decisions about their fertility and potential offspring; women whose lives didn’t necessarily differ so much from non-disabled, hearing women’s lives.’ Kaite O’Reilly, playwright. Peeling,...

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The Transformative Power of Having Fun: Alternative Miss Ireland and Contemporary Irish Theatre

The Transformative Power of Having Fun: Alternative Miss Ireland and Contemporary Irish Theatre

Emerging from Dublin’s LGBT community, and cruising the tail end of a recession, the first AMI took place in Sides nightclub in 1987, run by Frank Stanley, Ross Elliot Tallon and Niall Sweeney. It didn’t take place again until 1996, three years after the decriminalisation of male homosexuality,...

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Gary Mitchell - An independent voice

Gary Mitchell - An independent voice

His plays, for stage and radio, did not to make for comfortable viewing, given their uncompromising portrayal of violent political and paramilitary feuding and bitter domestic conflict within a closed, intensely private world. They offered a new, unfamiliar and uneasy version of Irishness, not previously...

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Confidence and sure-footedness: Irish Contemporary Dance in 2011

Confidence and sure-footedness: Irish Contemporary Dance in 2011

Much of what happened in dance during 2011 gave hope for the future. But some of what happened gave fear for the past. Emerging choreographers came of age, organisations celebrated anniversaries and new developments countered the bleakness caused by growing unemployment, emigration and general social...

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I try to get under the skin

I try to get under the skin

Fintan Walsh interviews Nancy Harris, whose play No Romance premiered at the Peacock earlier this year and discusses her adaptation of Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata and her new play Our New Girl, both of which open in London in January. Fintan Walsh: Most readers of Irish Theatre Magazine will...

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NO MORE DRAMA - Rimini Protokoll: A Live Archive of the Everyday

NO MORE DRAMA - Rimini Protokoll: A Live Archive of the Everyday

In Germany, in 2002, the hitherto largely unknown group, Rimini Protokoll, gained instant national attention with a project that almost did not take place at all. Two men who played a significant role in this were Matthias Lilienthal — who would become director of the Berlin theatre, Hebbel am...

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Geography and community:  Louise Lowe's four-part artistic vision

Geography and community: Louise Lowe's four-part artistic vision

I’m standing inside at the glassed-in apex of one The LAB’s ground floor galleries, per the instructions of director Louise Lowe. Actor Dee Burke charges towards the glass and knocks on it. Hard. A group of neighborhood kids passing by joins in. She motions for me to come outside and I choose...

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Pan Pan : A theatre of ideas

Pan Pan : A theatre of ideas

Fintan Walsh: Gavin, could you tell us about your latest project, the general concept behind it, and the rehearsal process? Gavin Quinn: We’ve done a new recording of Beckett’s All That Fall, and we recorded it over two weeks, whereas a radio play is normally done over three days. Then...

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New playwriting: innovative programmes and vital initiatives

New playwriting: innovative programmes and vital initiatives

‘Absolute delight!’ This was Hanna Slattne’s reaction when she learned that playwrights David Ireland and Jimmy McAleavey, whose work was produced by Tinderbox Theatre Company in Belfast, had won two of the three awards presented by the Stewart Parker Trust in March of this year. The...

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Classic Stage Ireland's modus operandi

Classic Stage Ireland's modus operandi

Watching Andy Hinds at work in the rehearsal room, it is clear he is an experienced teacher of classical drama. He stops the actors several times to question them about how the pace of a delivered verse can elucidate the meaning for the audience; to make them repeat and enunciate until the message of...

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