DUBLIN'S ABBEY Theatre is planning four world premieres over the next year, with new plays from Irish playwrights Marina Carr, Tom Mac Intyre, and Billy Roche and acclaimed American writer Sam Shepard, as well as the first Beckett production at the Abbey in over 20 years.
At the announcement yesterday of the theatre's programme until mid-2009, director Fiach Mac Conghail said he was "pleased and relieved" at this week's endorsement from the Arts Council, which is renewing its three-year funding of the national theatre, committing more than €30 million over the next three years.
Mac Conghail described the Abbey's relationship with the council as one of "partnership and co-operation and trust".
He said the Abbey and the council had been working together over the past six to eight months to agree the funding plan. The announcement of funding was "not a one-night-stand scenario".
This is a busy and vibrant time for the theatre, said Mac Conghail. He said the Abbey had 56 actors in employment yesterday - as well as Three Sistersat the Abbey and Big Lovepreviewing at the Peacock before opening tonight, An Ideal Husbandis in rehearsal for the Abbey, Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horseis previewing in New York and Mark O'Rowe's Terminusis rehearsing for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Fiona Shaw, directed by Deborah Warner in the British National Theatre production of Beckett's Happy Days, will be at the Abbey for the month of October, as part of its Dublin Theatre Festival line-up.
The Irish premiere of Delirium, Enda Walsh's adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevskys The Brothers Karamazov(a co-commission between the Abbey and the Barbican in London) will be in the Peacock for the festival.
In a response to changing audience behaviour and lifestyles, the theatre also plans to start performances earlier - from October shows at the Abbey will begin at 7.30pm, and plays at the Peacock will begin at 8pm.
While there has been some debate in the Seanad and elsewhere about other possible sites for the relocated Abbey, Mac Conghail stressed yesterday that plans for the theatre's relocation to the docklands were still in train, and the detailed design brief for the architectural competition was being drawn up.
He was not emotionally tied to the current Abbey Street site, he said, and he wanted the theatre to move to the docklands.
He expects the theatre should open about five years after the architectural competition is announced. He said the fact that the project is a public-private partnership means the Abbey will not be on the balance sheet in the early stages, which may help the project.
Following the theatre festival, Jimmy Fay will direct Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Uiat the Abbey, and Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle's lively version of The Playboy of the Western World, directed by Jimmy Fay, will return for the Christmas season. At the Peacock in January, Marivaux's La Disputewill mark the debut of young director Wayne Jordan.
In what Mac Conghail hopes will be an annual Shakespeare production at the Abbey, Comedy of Errors(March 31st) will be directed by Jason Byrne.
Mac Conghail said he hoped, within three to five years, to develop an ensemble of actors. This would not be a return to the Abbey Players, but he aspires to have a short-term temporary ensemble working together.
On stage: four new plays
New work starts with Lay Me Down Softlyby Billy Roche (November 19th, the Peacock), directed by Tony-nominated Wilson Milam, who directed Roche's award-winning Wexford Trilogy for London's Tricycle Theatre and Roche's last new play at the Abbey. Acclaimed Irish playwright Marina Carr's Marbleopens on the Abbey stage on February 17th, directed by UK director, Jeremy Herrin. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard's second new work for the Abbey, Ages of the Moon, written for actors Stephen Rea and Seán McGinley, will open at the Peacock in March. And Selina Cartmell will direct Tom Mac Intyre's Only an Apple, described as "a lusty and unsettling tale of an ailing playboy taoiseach" at the Peacock from April 28th.