The National Theatre has announced four new appointments: director of the Peacock Theatre, commissioning manager, literary officer and casting director. Ali Curran, who is currently director of Dublin Fringe Festival, will become director of the Peacock in January. Her role will be to develop a programme of mainly new and experimental work in collaboration with Ben Barnes, the Abbey's artistic director.
The 30-year-old, whose drive, imagination and commitment have been clear from the past four Fringe festivals, says she is challenged by the opportunities of her new position. "The Peacock has always been a space to facilitate the development of new theatrical voices, and I feel the raw potential of writers, directors, actors and designers currently active in Ireland will allow us to present work that is truly unique to contemporary Ireland."
Working closely with her to further this aim will be Jocelyn Clarke, who will leave his position as theatre critic of the Sunday Tribune in October to become commissioning manager. He will develop existing play commissions and develop the Abbey's policy for nurturing new writing. Clarke has written extensively about theatre over the past 10 years and has worked as a dramaturge for various companies, including, most recently, Blue Raincoat. He has also lectured in theatre criticism at Trinity College in Dublin and at Columbia University in New York.
The new casting director is Marie Kelly, who joined the Abbey in 1993 as personal assistant to the general manager. Orla Flanagan, the new literary officer, joined last month; she will assist the literary manager, Judy Friel, and Clarke in the theatre's literary activity, including archiving its repertoire for its centenary in 2004 - by which time, presumably, the new Abbey building will be unveiled...
The Abbey's gain will be the Fringe's loss, but the festival pre-dates Curran, of course, who has always been wary of it becoming synonymous with one person. Programming for the seventh festival is well under way, and yesterday the Fringe announced the expansion of its board and staff. The new chairwoman is the barrister Emile Daly, who succeeds Janice McAdam. Joining her are Lynne Parker, artistic director of Rough Magic, and independent arts consultant Una Carmody. Scott Watson, who has been working with arts organisations in New York, joins as executive producer. Also, the Fringe has secured sponsorship from the ESB for this year's event, and for assistance with market research and audience development.
The video and installation artist Caroline McCarthy was named the winner of the first AIB Prize on Tuesday, writes Aidan Dunne. The prize is for "artists of promise", and was awarded by the group's chief executive, Michael Buckley, at a reception in the Royal Hibernian Academy's Ashford Gallery. McCarthy established her reputation with Greetings, a humorously irreverent work in which the artist appears sporadically - by jumping up and down - in the frame of a video camera trained on a typical Irish landscape, the Sugarloaf in Wicklow, attempting, metaphorically, to find a place for herself in Irish history and art history.
The idea of the award is that artists are nominated by galleries that intend to exhibit their work. The £15,000 prize is split between a cash award and catalogue funding. McCarthy was nominated by Temple Bar Gallery in Dublin. The other three shortlisted artists were the photographers Gerard Byrne (Limerick City Gallery of Art) and Mark Curran (Gallery of Photography, Dublin) and the painter and installation a cash award of £1,000.
AIB's entry into sponsorship of an art award comes, coincidentally, in the year when Glen Dimplex bowed out after eight years of the award scheme it has run in conjunction with the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
