Siobhán Bourke and Jane Daly of Irish Theatre Institute win Special Tribute award

The Special Tribute award at this year's Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards will be given to Siobhán Bourke and Jane Daly of the Irish Theatre Institute (ITI).

The ITI is a resource organisation for Irish theatre. It provides a range of networking, information and training programmes, based in its offices in Temple Bar. It researches and promotes the Irish repertoire through Playography Ireland, an online searchable catalogue of new Irish writing that goes back to 1901. It also provides extensive programmes for supporting artists and developing work, including the Show in a Bag and Six in the Attic programmes. Almost every Irish theatre practitioner will have used its services at some stage in their career.

Siobhán Bourke is the founder and co-director of the organisation, along with Jane Daly. The ITI was formerly known as Theatre Shop, from 1994 to 2006.

Sonya Kelly, who along with Shane O'Reilly presented last year's Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, says the ITI is "the ear that listens, the encouragement that says 'do' and the advice that says 'don't'. It is the ultimate gift, as a writer, I can neither put a price on nor touch. It is the gift of support."

The shortlist for this year's Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards will be announced on Saturday, January 14th. This is the 20th year of the awards, which celebrate and acknowledge the best in Irish theatre.

The judges for 2016 were Anna Walsh, director of Theatre Forum, Trinity College Dublin professor emeritus Nicholas Grene, and Ella Daly, general manager of Dublin Youth Theatre.

This year's Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards take place on March 5th at the National Concert Hall. Tickets are now on sale from nch.ie.