Galway Theatre Festival promises comedy and creativity

Mobile digital theatre using smartphone technology and a 24-hour challenge to write a play are highlights of this year's Galway Theatre Festival, which is runing this week until Sunday.

Mephisto, Stone's Throw and Fregoli are among the groups performing at the not-for-profit event, geared towards aspiring companies and directed by Kate Costello.

Anam Theatre draws on what it describes as some of Galway’s “best young female acting talent” for Low Level Panic, a Samuel Beckett award-winning play by Clare McIntyre about three young women “struggling to survive in a world filled with pornographic media”.

Several Dublin Fringe productions, including John Rogers's Decision Problem [Good Time For Questions] and Devious theatre company's War of Attrition, are appearing, while Cork-based poet Adam Wyeth is author of a Hitchcockian comedy , Hang Up , staged by Broken Crow.

A “twisted sci-fi fantasy” involving a “festival of freshwater squid”, Dradin, In Love is presented by Tribe theatre company, and the programme also includes workshops and “tech” talks, along with staged readings.

The first such “tech” talk, held this morning in NUI Galway’s Cube Theatre focused on stage management, while lighting will be the theme of the second, on Friday.

A west of Ireland-based improvisation troupe, The Sky Babies, will stage a show tonight in the Townhouse Bar which will be based entirely on audience suggestions for the plot...and what they describe as the “luck of the gods”.

Rehearsed readings take place in Irish and English today and tomorrow, while the 24-hour theatre challenge starts at 6pm on Sunday in the Taibhdhearc theatre.

A full programme for the festival is on galwaytheatrefestival.com, and tickets can be booked through the Town Hall Theatre box office, Galway, at (091) 569777.