ArtScape: The Arts Council was busy this week pushing the case for the retention of the artists' tax exemption at an Oireachtas finance committee meeting, where council member John McGahern apparently both charmed all assembled and made a forceful argument in favour of the exemption.
He was there with the council's director Mary Cloake and chairwoman Olive Braiden. The council is keeping this kettle on the boil and next week will publish some individual case studies - to show how the exemption has affected or enabled the careers of 10 artists.
Meanwhile, some organisations have been concerned that while applications for funding must be in by October 21st, the new strategy for the arts - which will light the way and the policy in the absence of the abandoned Arts Plan - has not been finalised. It was originally envisaged it would be published in September, but it's in the final editing stages and now looks like a mid-November publication as the council wants to get some idea of the levels of expected 2006 resources.
It may be a tall order to put together revenue funding applications without knowing what the council strategy is, so to assist organisations the council's website yesterday put up guidelines on goals and assessment criteria, along with the headings under which the council will assess the artistic quality of the work, and key principles governing decisions in each area of arts practice.
The council has a budget meeting on November 24th, by which time it should know its funding for next year, and this time it plans to take more time for decisions about how to disburse the funding - letters and e-mails will be sent out to its clients in the week of January 23rd - allowing eight weeks, including the Christmas period, for decisions. Cloake points out no other Government agency has to make decisions on such a large amount of funding in such a short timescale.
Late January is a ridiculous time for any company to know what its budget is for the current year - especially if it hopes to have productions in the early part of the year. But the year-to-year Government funding based on the Budget means the Arts Council gets its own budget unfeasibly late. Cloake emphasises that the council is aware of the difficulties this timescale creates, and is looking at options to make it easier for organisations to plan with a degree of knowledge about funding. She also says if the late January date creates cashflow or other difficulties for companies, they should contact the council.
Dressing up for NYC
Gúna Nua are off to New York. Well not quite, but the smart independent company headed by David Parnell and Paul Meade has nailed a two-show co-production deal with rising young New York theatre company, Origin. Mark O'Rowe's Crestfall opens in 59E59 Theater in the Big Apple tomorrow night and runs until October 23rd. Origin, founded by George C Heslin, is making a name for itself producing Irish work, including Enda Walsh's Misterman and Communion by Aidan Mathews.
As part of the deal, next autumn will see the New York premiere of a new Gúna Nua show by Meade and Parnell.
At a reception to mark the collaboration at the Odessa club in Dublin there was a slew of Irish theatre and film folk, including Mark O'Rowe, Sara James, Tadhg Murphy and Mark Hubberman from Boy Eats Girl, Dawn Bradfield, Garret Lombard and Luke Griffin from Pure Mule, Ruth Negga, Myles Breen, Peter Hanly, Marie Mullen (who was in the Gate production of Crestfall and spoke at the celebration) and faces from Fair City and The Clinic.
Parnell looked about him and praised the "honourable and noble profession" of acting ("directors - forget them!") and talked about the buzz and romance of doing theatre in New York. He wouldn't say much about the play he's working on with Meade for next year, other than to say its working title is Trousers, and it tells the story of two men sharing a flat, with only one decent pair of trousers between them ("we'd like to think it will touch on similar dark and edgy themes to Crestfall," he joked).
Meanwhile, Theses, a new play by Gúna Nua and Gerry Dukes, in association with the Civic Theatre in Tallaght, tours Ireland next month.
Cork's Everyman theatre this week managed to scoop American actor Ed Harris for his European stage debut in the world premiere of the one-man play Wrecks written and directed by Neil LaBute. Harris who's best-known for his screen roles in The Hours, The Truman Show and Apollo 13, and earned a directorial Oscar nomination for Pollock, has just finished filming Copying Beethoven. He also co-stars in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. Wrecks is an Everyman Palace Theatre production in association with Cork 2005 and Kenneth Madden, and is the story of a man's love for his recently deceased wife. The show opens on November 23rd.
Applications for third-level courses at the DIT's Conservatory of Music and Drama are up by 100 per cent this year - and may well increase again, following a showcase concert at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on Thursday, writes Arminta Wallace. The "classical spectacular" will feature five of the DIT's teaching staff, each of whom will give a 15-minute mini-recital of music which ranges from Wagner to popular traditional tunes.
"We're in the middle of performance courses galore," says the organist Peter Sweeney, who organised the event, "and it makes sense to show the world what a wonderful teaching staff we have - a fully fledged group which is committed to the performance of classical music."
Sweeney says he has been trying to organise such a concert for three or four years. "Every student wants to perform at the National Concert Hall, and if young musicians know their teachers are out there performing in the real musical world, it can act as an enormous incentive to encourage them to do likewise."
The five teachers who will perform at the concert - sponsored by Smart Telecom, and broadcast by lyric fm - are soprano Regina Nathan, violinist Michael D'Arcy, guitarist John Feely, pianist Roy Holmes, and Sweeney himself.
"We hope that this will be the first of five annual showcases," says Sweeney. "That way, we'll be able to show everybody off - eventually."
This year Waterford's Dyehouse Gallery marks its 10th anniversary with a move of premises, from Dyehouse Lane to Mary Street, writes Aidan Dunne. In the gallery's first 10 years, Oliver Dempsey Architects and Liz McCay, the faces behind Dyehouse, have greatly enriched the city's cultural fabric, maintaining a lively exhibition programme, introducing many well-known Irish artists to Waterford, as well as featuring such renowned local talents as Michael Mulcahy and the fine draughtsman Pat Murphy.
Murphy lives in the Old Parish in the Ring Gaeltacht. Another Dyehouse initiative, just finished at the new Autoboland car showrooms at the Butlerstown Roundabout on the Cork Road, featured Murphy's works on paper made during a three-month walking trip to Cuba. The show also featured a work-in-progress by Bonnie Dempsey, a documentary film Cuban Portrait: Travels with the Artist Pat Murphy. Dempsey is a graduate of the National Film School in Dún Laoghaire. The new Dyehouse opened on Mary Street yesterday.
The capital's five-week marathon of theatre and performance - the Fringe followed by the Theatre Festival - is well past the mid-way mark. Upcoming events, aside from new openings, include Madly off in all Directions on Wednesday, when six writers and directors create a new work on a train to Galway, with the six resulting pieces to be performed in the Sugar Club by 25 performers at 11pm that night.
On Thursday, leading critics (Helen Meany, Karen Fricker, Mark Fisher, Alice Gheorgescu and Brian Singleton) discuss Dublin Theatre Festival productions at the Irish Theatre Magazine International Critics' Forum (5.30pm at ProjectCube, admission free).
Richard Olivier's workshop in applying the lessons learned from Macbeth to business is next Friday. The Tricycle's "tribunals play" Bloody Sunday opens at the Abbey on Tuesday - oddly enough the same night as Danny Morrison's The Wrong Man comes to Dublin's Tivoli Theatre. Next Saturday there's a panel discussion, "The Politics of Theatre" (11am at the Abbey, free but booking required).