Abbey nails 2003 plans to the mast

Speculation about the Abbey's programme for the rest of the year - and particularly its plans for a new production of The Playboy of the Western World, and for Tom Murphy's version of The Cherry Orchard - can stop.

Artistic director Ben Barnes has announced that the Playboy production is being postponed until 2004 - because of invitations to tour it during the Abbey's centenary year. So now the production will probably tour Ireland next spring, play the Abbey stage during the summer and tour internationally in the autumn. Instead of Playboy, Barnes will direct Brian Friel's Aristocrats (the first Abbey production since 1979) from mid-November. He said he was pleased with the casting, which can be difficult to get right for this play: Peter Hanly will play Casimir and Justine Mitchell is confirmed as Claire.

The Murphy version of The Cherry Orchard will also hit the stage in 2004 - the centenary of the play's first production and the 100th anniversary of Chekhov's death, as well as the Abbey's birthday. Plans are under wraps for next year's theatre celebrations; the centenary programme will not be fully announced until November, virtually the eve of the celebrations.

Barnes said, however, that the first half of the year would see an emphasis on European theatre, while the Irish repertoire would be to the fore in the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, the Peacock's line-up from mid-August has also been confirmed. After the production of The Wild Duck, Jean Guy LeCat, architect, designer and Peter Brook collaborator, presents Conceiving Space, a week of working with theatre professionals to challenge conventional thinking on theatrical space. Later, there's a series of readings of Abbey-seeded commissions in development, including work by Talia Delaney and Conall Quinn.

The Peacock's theatre festival production (developed along with Out of Joint under Max Stafford Clark's direction) will be Duck, a début by Irish writer Stella Feehily, about two teenagers. Two other presentations by other companies follow - The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst from Peacock partner Blue Raincoat; and David Bolger performs Swept, a Peacock/Cois Ceim co-production.

Small change, big change

Acquiring a copy of The City Arts Centre Civil Arts Inquiry Documents 01-06 could be good use of a euro, or if you want to check it out online it comes free, writes Donal Scannell. The first tangible product of the City Art Centre's recent self evaluation also opens up wider issues of art's place and purpose within society. The Irish art scene is at bursting point with new ideas waiting for ways and opportunities to explode into our consciousness. These documents, although fundamentally theoretical, are so stimulating that you may well finish them at one sitting.

Personal highlight is the amazing story of Tim Rollins and his art work with high school kids in the battlegrounds of the South Bronx. His mantra is "Art can't change the world. Art changes people and people change the world" - there's got to be a biopic on the way. Also featured is Donal O'Kelly's bizarrely humorous Who Am I? performance piece on accompanying CD and David Ervine, Liz O'Donnell and Steven King discussing the Belfast Agreement in the context of Shane Cullen's The Agreement. Available for one euro by sending a S.A.E to City Arts Centre, Moss Street, Dublin 2, or online at www.cityartscentre.ie

Losing the will to live

The Arts Bill was scheduled to come up again for debate in the Dáil on Wednesday afternoon, but in what seems to be the pre-summer legislative mop-up, it got sandwiched between the second stage of the Industrial Development Science Foundation bill and private members' time at 7 p.m.

As the "debate" on the Industrial Development bill dragged on and on to an almost empty house, the 7 p.m. cut-off drew nearer and nearer. Eventually, at about five to seven (just the point at which I was losing the will to live) the debate on the Arts Bill began, at amendment 19 (out of 50-odd). Minister O'Donoghue took his place in the chamber. Patricia Quinn was in the gallery. Jimmy Deenihan got up to speak on amendment 21 (about the role of local authorities), got less than two minutes into his spiel, and was interrupted to make way for the private members. Guess it's just the way of, uhm . . . parliamentary democracy.

The Arts Bill will be back before the House on Wednesday, as item No 1 after the order of business, and it is guillotined for 6 p.m. Then it's due in the Seanad on June 24th-26th, so it should be done and dusted by the summer recess.

Fête accompli

Complementing the celebratory atmosphere of the Special Olympics opening next Saturday will be Fête de la Musique, the free musical celebration enormously popular in France for 20 years and showing its face in Ireland for the first time.

There will be three free events in Dublin - starting with a concert at St Stephen's Green from 2 to 4 p.m., featuring artists including Ze Band and Hubris. It will be hosted by Tom O'Brannagain, and you can expect French tunes ranging from Brel to Piaf.

Tango specialists Zita, jazzman Tommy Halferty and cabaret singer Caroline Moreau will perform at Café des Amis at the Alliance Française from 4 to 8 p.m., and Café en Seine will feature Sean Molloy, Breton musician Patrick Prigent and Deja Blues all afternoon and into the evening. The organisers, which include Goexpat French Events, a branch of Approach People, and the Cultural Service of the French embassy, hope for an attendance of about 4,000, with a reach of 10,000, for the three events.

Details at www.approachpeople.com

Midsummer Festival

This year's Woodford Bourne Cork Midsummer Festival, starting on Tuesday and running until June 28th, has an eclectic line-up. In theatre, Meridian's Bits 'n' Pieces by Raymond Scannell, a portrait of a young band of Cork graffiti artists, and Corcadora's Love, a new site-specific workshop production which takes place in the disused Guys building on Cornmarket Street, look like strong highlights. The festival opens with Enda Walsh's acclaimed Bedbound, directed by Donal Gallagher of Cork's Asylum Productions, and another intriguing prospect is Janus Theatre Company's Spaghetti Western, by Ian Wild.

Music-lovers will be interested in gigs by Super Furry Animals, Kíla and Jerry Fish and Mudbug Club with Juliet Turner, while for the more classically-inclined there's a dulcimer concert at the Cathedral and lunchtime concerts at the Crawford Lecture Theatre.

There's also the Cork International Poetry Festival, a live soap opera that runs every day, readings by Cork-based novelists and poets, plus activities for kids. For the full programme, go to www.corkfestival.ie

And furthermore . . .

"I like provocation - shaking Swedish society . . . I started 20 years ago by doing theatre for children which did not look like the thing you think when I say 'children's theatre'. It is art for children. And a provocation." So says Swedish children's theatre practitioner Suzanne Osten, who will be in Ireland for the first time this Monday to discuss her practice and to present a public talk (as part of a two-day programme), Perspectives of Childhood. Osten is the artistic director of Unga Klara, which produces controversial and disturbing drama about contemporary issues such as divorce, parental mental illness and teenage suicide, questioning, and encouraging the audience

to question, a society that does not protect its children. Presented by

the City Arts Centre, in

association with Critical Voices; film screening 3.30 p.m., keynote address 5 p.m. (free), City Arts Centre, 23 Moss Street, Dublin 2.

Other Critical Voices events include aboriginal art expert Djon Mundine's discussion about traditional rhythms (St Patrick's College Carlow, today, 4 p.m.); collaborative artists and curators Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie (today, 2 p.m.), at IMMA; as well as City Park, a Project arts centre exhibition and Lyric FM series about contemporary art from India. www.artscouncil.ie/criticalvoices/main1.htm

Have a ball and help raise money for the New Theatre at next Saturday's inaugural Midsummer Night's ball at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham. The East Essex Street theatre is raising money for restoration work as well as having some fun with friends. After drinks on the

lawn, the Delicious Divas perform

during supper and later Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends entertain.

Tickets €65 from the New Theatre

(01) 6703361.

Cliona Fitzgerald (14), from Whitechurch, Blarney, Co Cork, who studies with Susan Cap at the Cork School of Music, has won the €9,000 Kawai piano in the Lyric fm/Pianos Plus nationwide competition.

The Labour Party is organising a forum on the arts this afternoon (Mansion

House, Dublin, 2-5p.m.), called Silence,

Exile and Funding - the Artist

and the Public Purse, to discuss the crisis in arts funding, the structural changes within the Arts Council, and the imminent Arts Act. Speakers include: Siobhán Cleary (composer), Marina Hughes (film producer), Prof Declan Kiberd, Declan McGonigal (City Arts), William White (Project Arts Centre). Party leader Pat Rabitte will be there, and Liz McManus (deputy party leader) and Jack Wall (arts spokesman) will also address the event.