Three years of Six in The Attic

I just wrapped up my third year as facilitator for the Six in the Attic programme run by Irish Theatre Institute. I love working on it. Each year I get to know a new gang of artists who make theatre all over the island and hear what their concerns and ambitions are. I see them take the reins of their career and emerge at the end of the programme with a stronger sense of who they are as artists, a lot of insider knowledge of how theatre works in Ireland, and a cohort of peers to support them into the future. As always, Irish Theatre Institute offers unparalleled practical support to them and to me – and the ever-growing crowd Six in the Attic alumni.

This year I got to work with the wonderful line up of Alison Teahan, Amy Kidd, Aoife Sweeney O’Connor, Ari Bhatti, Cara Christie, Dagogo Hart, Darren Yorke, David Ferreira-Alves, Fiona Breen, Hannah Carberry, Nyree Yergainharsian, Samuel Yakura, and Thomas Collins. (Pictured above, sweltering in the Belfast sun earlier this year with myself, Narod Shahinian and Niamh Murtagh of ITI.)

In this role I’m not quite an ‘us’ and not quite a ‘them’, but a third party. I get to offer my knowledge and experience as both an artist and arts worker, and sometimes I think of myself as a orbiting satellite, observing what is going on and periodically buzzing into communication with the people working away on the planet. Over the past years I have developed similar roles working alongside other organisations on the artist support programmes that they administer. Currently I’m working with Irish Theatre Institute, Mermaid Arts Centre on Gap Day, and Kunstverein Aughrim on their Creative Producers Programme. It seems that satellites are pretty useful.

Looking forward to next month when I get to begin working with my fourth Six in the Attic group… although there’s never just six.

The sail rail experience

Making, Organising

After reading my thoughts about surface travel, a few people have asked about the sail-rail trip to London from Dublin. Here are some very practical notes from my experience for people who are thinking of giving it a go. I tend to travel on my own, so the notes reflect that.

In it I cover:

Booking
Getting to Dublin Port
On the ferry
On the train
Doing things and paying for things
Eating and drinking
When things go wrong (and they do)
Getting away from Dublin Port

Two years of talking

Organising

My website has been quite neglected of late. But I have a good excuse in the form of #WakingTheFeminists.

Other than all the practical logistics of being involved in the core team that coordinated the whole campaign (that small thing), I also dove head-first into the world of public speaking – not something I took to easily, but managed to get through it thanks to a lot of peer support and endless preparation. I hadn’t spoken much in public before, at all. All I can say is that it gets easier (and even enjoyable) over time – and I’ve been lucky to have had the opportunity for a lot of practice over the past two years.

Here’s (more or less) all the things I’ve spoken at to date in relation to #WakingTheFeminists – from small groups of students in seminar rooms, to 1500+ people in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre. There are probably a few I’ve missed, but you get the idea.

And that doesn’t count radio, TV or print media interviews. But that’s a whole other story…

Photo by Kate Horgan

#WakingTheFeminists public meeting, Abbey Theatre 2015
Theatre Upstairs post show discussion 2015
Trinity Drama & Theatre studies Contemporary Irish Theatre in Context seminars 2015 & 16
NUI Galway seminars 2015 & 16
Theatre of Change Symposium presentation, Abbey Theatre 2016
UCD Arts Administration seminar 2016
Lir Academy seminar 2016
Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards acceptance speech, National Concert Hall 2016
IETM plenary meetings, Amsterdam, Valencia, Bucharest 2015-17
#WakingTheFeminists Spring Forward public event, Liberty Hall 2016
TCD Law Society panel discussion 2016
F Festival panel discussion, Back Loft 2016
Luoghi Comuni Festival panel discussion, Milan 2016
Dublin Junior Chamber International awards 2016
Offset panel discussion, Bord Gais Energy Theatre 2016
Drogheda Arts Festival ‘Dissenters’ event 2016
Gaiety School of Acting seminar 2016
Nottingham European Arts and Theatre Festival presentation 2016
All Ireland Performing Arts Conference panel discussion, Town Hall Theatre Galway 2016
Body and Soul Festival, panel discussion 2016
Visual Arts Workers Forum presentation, Gluksman Gallery, 2016
Cork Midsummer Festival presentation, Triskel 2016
Inspirefest presentation, Bord Gais Energy Theatre 2016
UC Berkeley seminar Dublin 2016
Culture Night panel discussion for RTE Arena, Dublin Castle 2016
University of Limerick seminar 2016
Creative Minds series panel discussion, US Ambassador’s residence 2016
#WakingTheFeminists One Thing More event, Abbey Theatre 2016
Sibeal Conference in conversation, NUI Galway 2016
TCD Philosophical Society presentation 2017
Creative Ireland Gender Policy workshop 2017
Women of the World festival presentation & panel discussion, Hull 2017
Rough Magic’s ‘The Train’ panel discussion, Abbey Theatre 2017
Circus & Gender conference presentation, Mercat de los Flores Barcelona 2017
Arts Council’s Future Retrospectives panel discussion, Science Gallery 2017
UCD theatre studies seminar 2017
Sandymount Study Group & Curious Dolls Study Group presentations 2017
Sugarglass Theatre post show discussion 2017
Pori Theatre Festival in conversation, Finland 2017

Save

It’s all go.

Designing, Organising

A bit of an overview post of the past couple of months. It’s been busy.

2015-04-22 10.16.28 – A Girl is a Half-formed Thing won a Fringe First and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award 2015 during its run at the Traverse this August. Aoife Duffin also won the Award for Acting Excellence from The Stage. The London run at the Young Vic for early 2016 has been announced.

– I designed for performances in more dusty disused spaces: a doll factory in Crolly, Co. Donegal, and an unused shop unit in Smithfield, Dublin. More to follow on these.

– My photo (right) was used for the front cover of the Earagail Arts Festival brochure.

– I’ve been selected to take part in the Theatre Forum/Dublin Theatre Festival Next Stage programme later this month – aka theatre bootcamp.

– I was invited to take part in a lovely Dinner and Dialogue event to talk about good design in a beautiful Georgian house in Dublin’s city centre, as part of the year of Irish Design.

– Moonfish Theatre’s Star of the Sea is fitting up again this week for its national tour, including a few days as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

– Thanks to grants from the Arts Council’s Theatre Artist Development Scheme I’m developing a pilot initiative with Mermaid Arts Centre called Gap Days for freelance theatre workers to take paid days to think, dream and plan for later this year, as well as preparing for year four of the Pan Pan International Mentorship programme.

Like I said, all go.

Design for Stage and Screen Ireland website

Designing, Organising

Earlier this year I worked with Ewa Segner and Siobhán Bourke of Irish Theatre Institute to compile a website to highlight stage and screen designers coming from and working in Ireland.

You can access the website here. It is in Beta mode for the next few weeks, and the content is being updated and added to every day – an ever-growing catalogue of the work of costume, set, lighting and sound designers/composers who design for the stage, and production, hair, makeup and costume designers who design for screen.

A Girl is a Half Formed Thing horizon ideas sketch

Most exciting (for me) is the chance to see some of the sketches side by side with the final production images – it’s always a treat to see the development of ideas, and the idiosyncratic ways that designers approach their work.

The timing of the website going live in June was to coincide with both the year of Irish Design and the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. However, it is a resource that will be kept up by ITI, along the same lines as their Playography and Irishtheatre.ie sites.

Ireland mapping report for IETM

Organising

Earlier this year, I was commissioned by the secretariat of the IETM international network to write a ‘mapping’ report that outlines the current situation of the contemporary performing arts in Ireland. Incredibly difficult to distill it all down, but I had a go.

Here it is in all its sweeping, unsubtle, gap-filled glory.

(Thanks to Cian O’Brien of Project Arts Centre for being the outside eye and reassuring me that you’d never guess from reading it that I was a left-leaning socialist.)