`If you want to see Billy Roche's Amphibians, just leave a tenner in a bowl," laughed Ali Curran, director of the Dublin Fringe Festival on Tuesday night. Ali threw a small party in the Trocadero restaurant to circulate details of the festival and was doing a little not-so-subtle fishing for a sponsor for Billy's sell-out show. It was first seen in Waterford and Ali is hoping to bring it to Dublin. Even if the accumulated tenners don't bring in Roche's show, there'll be plenty to see next September/October when the festival kicks off. Danny Hoch, described by the New York Observer as "the finest solo artist in America", will bring over his one-hander, Jails, Hospitals and Hip Hop, and choreographer Yun Chane will bring her production Couleurs de Femme from the island of Reunion. And that's just two of the 60 shows.
Not surprisingly, most of the theatre folk at Tuesday night's party were from closer to home. Maire Bugler of the Daghdha dance company was there chatting about Chimera, the new work by Mary Nunan which will be performed in the festival before it moves to a major festival in Mexico.
Coincidentally, on the same day that Chimera will have its Mexican premiere (October 23rd), an exhibition concentrating on the Mexican Day of the Dead will open in the Douglas Hyde Gallery in TCD. Expect icing-sugar skulls and a huge, ornate altar, built by a professional altar-builder, Eugenio Reyes Eustaquio.
Annie Ryan, director of the Corn Exchange theatre company which is always popular at the Fringe, was full of plans for its new production, Car Show. This will consist of three or four cars parked in Meeting House Square, with mini plays going on in each one. The audience will have to climb into the back of each car to hear what's going on. The quality will presumably be good as Annie has asked the likes of Bedrock's Jimmy Fay and Rough Magic's Lynne Parker to direct work by Alex Johnston and Mark O'Rowe. Right now, though, Annie is more concerned with her personal life - this weekend she is marrying fellow director and playwright, Michael West. Other festival folk included Johnny Hanrahan and Elizabeth Moynihan from the Cork-based Meridian theatre company; Jimmy Murphy, Patrick David Nolan and Deirdre Molloy who are all working on Aceldama for Black Box theatre company; Vanessa Fielding of Vesuvius which is presenting an Italian drama, Fontamara, in Collins Barracks, and John Fisher, a former working partner of the late Dermot Morgan, who is looking after the comedy programme in the festival this year.