A base where theatre can plot its future

Fourteen years after the organisation began to take shape, the Irish Theatre Institute has moved into a smart new premises. Its directors tell Sara Keatingabout their ambitious plans for the future

'THE IRISH Theatre Institute is not an archive," Jane Daly insists. "It is an organisation embedded in the now. All of our projects have a contemporary relevance, and even when we chart the history of Irish repertoire, like we did in the English- and Irish-language playographies that we established, it was because we see the history of Irish theatre as something live, something contemporary, with an important relevance for today as much as for posterity."

However, the present becomes the past before we have the chance to take a hold on it, and nowhere is this more true than in the theatre, which has a tendency to disappear as the curtain falls. In fact, the Irish Theatre Institute (ITI) has become more than merely the creative networking hub to which Daly and her co-director, Siobhán Bourke, first aspired when they began the evolutionary process of establishing ITI in 1994. If ITI operates as an ambassador for contemporary Irish theatre, by simultaneously creating a monument to Irish theatre's evolving history, it has become the guardian of Irish theatre's future too.

Now, Daly and Bourke are celebrating the beginning of a new era for ITI, with the opening of a new home in Temple Bar last week. However, even as they walk me through the four-storey building - the smell of paint and turpentine smarting our lungs - there is talk of future plans and expansion.

"We tend to think in three- to five-year cycles," Daly explains, "which can be very frustrating, because the conclusion of projects is always in the distance, but we have learnt that you cannot rush things, and we have to prioritise based on resources we have."

But surely this new open-access centre is the conclusion of one of the institute's larger-scale ambitions? "Oh, not really," Bourke says, almost nonchalantly. "I mean, of course the need for our own door - a space which people can come into and access our resources - is paramount. But all of our projects are focused on the work we see happening around us, and because that is happening, changing, evolving, all the time, we can't stop. We have to keep responding."

As Daly elaborates, ITI first began to take shape in 1994 with the foundation of the annual Theatre Shop networking event.

"It really started from our interest in the international potential of Irish theatre," she says. "Siobhán was working in Rough Magic and I was with Druid Theatre, and we saw that there was a huge gap in information about how Irish companies might approach international touring. Siobhán created the Theatre Shop event in 1994, where we encouraged international promoters to meet Irish companies, and the Irish Theatre Handbookresource grew out of that. The appendix of new Irish plays, which we included at the back of the Handbook, then grew into the Playography, when we saw that there was a huge opportunity to do something with all the information we had gathered over the years.

"In the 1990s, the emphasis in Irish theatre was all about new writing, and the Playography - one of our biggest projects to date - responded to that. But the trends have changed, and Irish theatre is certainly more directed towards the global these days, so our greatest emphasis now is international - promoting Irish work abroad. There's always been a lot of Irish work that has been accessible, and floating between Ireland, England and the west coast of America, but what's been happening in the last 10 years is a growing interest outside of English-language territories. And it has been really interesting to look at the companies who have been breaking into the European theatre scene, companies like Pan Pan or Blue Raincoat, where the work is more physical, using devices that are not entirely language-driven.

"But we can also see the translation aspect really growing too, and we're interested in continuing to support the work of Irish playwrights as well as Irish theatre companies in the future."

To this end, ITI's new home has a dedicated international centre, including a viewing room, where international visitors can tap into current work by Irish theatre companies. There is also a library for Irish theatre artists and researchers, available by appointment; a production centre, where companies without full administrative capacity can tap into office resources; and an entire floor nominated as a "creative space", where theatre practitioners can hold creative meetings and readings before - as Bourke calls it - "full rehearsal mode".

Of course, ITI's new building in also where its future projects will be developed. It is where the Irish Theatre Artists database, also officially launched this week, will be managed. A "self-populated promotional site for Irish theatre artists", Bourke says, "it is fully edited to ensure it is being used correctly and to greatest advantage."

It is where researchers will continue painstakingly to update ITI's online resources on a daily basis. It is where the internet server that safeguards the mass of virtual material ITI has thrust into the world - a big, breathing hulk of a machine - shudders away in the basement.

And, of course, it is also where Daly and Bourke will continue to plot the best ways to take Irish theatre forward in the 21st century.

• The Irish Theatre Institute headquarters is at 17 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2; www.irishtheatreonline.com