The Dublin Theatre Festival will have a "name" sponsor from next year after three years without one.
Telecom Eireann has entered into an agreement with the festival which will involve an undisclosed sum of money and other supports such as the inclusion of marketing material in Telecom correspondence.
The agreement has been made for a two-year period which will give the festival the chance to plan ahead with confidence. The two-week festival opened last night with a performance by Circus Ethiopia at the Gaiety Theatre. The opening ceremony was performed by the actress Fiona Shaw who is in Ireland filming the Elizabeth Bowen adaptation, The Last September. She applauded Irish theatre for "taking the baton" of world theatre at the end of the century and leading it into a new period of hopefulness. She also praised the festival for offering the opportunity for different nations to tell their stories to each other. She whetted the audience's appetite for the many highlights of the festival which include a new play by Marina Carr at the Abbey, an adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya by Brian Friel at the Gate, a flamenco version of Carmen and the Maly Theatre of St Petersburg.
Noelle Angley found it difficult to regain her normal sleeping pattern after 10 days as PRO of Westport's recent Arts Festival, Aine Ryan reports.
The 12 exhausted committee members still managed to boogie to Mayo-based funk and blues band, Hammerduck, at the Final Bash, which was held in McDaid's Nightclub. ead Wall, was determined that this year's festival would appeal to a wider audience, so policy was expansive.
Musical gigs, an established strong point of the festival, ranged from the belly-aching beat of Salsa Latina's exotic dancers to the dulcet melodies of the Connacht Ensemble. The theatre programme was expanded to include both local and national companies. Castlebar Bar Theatre's production of Lorca's tragic drama, The House of Bernardo Alba, complemented the wacky interpretation of the Opera Theatre Company's production of Cinderella.