Keeping a Head Above Water: Irish Theater in a Time of Transition

It was a rocky year for Irish theater. It was a rocky year for Ireland in general. The Celtic Tiger was declared dead in 2008. Property value plummeted, jobs were lost, and government spending was slashed. Funding cuts devastated many theater companies, and the Arts Council urged cost-cutting measures like “production hubs” that, in the minds of some, undercut the very nature of theater itself. Companies tried to stay the course with seasons of big names and adaptations of classic titles, or bonded together in a surge of devised work. And yet, though things looked grim—and, for some, assuredly were grim—in certain quarters Irish theater remained inventive and resourceful.

With the government looking to cut health care for seniors and education for juniors, it was inevitable that Irish theater also would suffer the consequences of the deepening economic recession. The Arts Council cut of €6.4 million to theater in the 2009 budget caused significant casualties. The Dublin-based companies Calypso and Storytellers, along with Tipperary’s Gallowglass, had their funding withdrawn completely. Due to past debt, they had to close their doors. In February 2009 the Gaiety School of Acting announced that, because of insufficient funding, it would not offer its two-year degree in acting in 2009–10. Trinity College Dublin already had closed the doors to its bachelor in acting studies in 2009. Still, not everyone felt the pinch. The Galway-based Druid and the Dublin-based Rough Magic companies actually saw increases in annual funding. The decision led some to conclude that the council was punishing those companies that had not put on profitable shows in the recent past, but the Arts Council claimed its intention was to ensure the continuation of established companies, who could themselves nurture emerging artists.

In addition to cutting budgets, the Arts Council began to contemplate the implementation of production hubs. The concept calls for theater artists to work outside of the normal company structure, and to have their work produced by a “hub”—for example, an arts center or a major theater company. The concept is not a new one, and the Arts Council has said it is looking to European models for new funding structures. However, within the theater community there was wide criticism of the plan. The production hub model caters to a result—a production—rather than a process: the end without the means. The Arts Council did not help its case by announcing the plan to support production hubs before consulting with the theater community. Many companies felt they were already operating as efficiently as possible, and that to force their members to break up their organizations and rework the ways they created would be a huge expenditure of time and energy. As Jane Daly of the Irish Theatre Institite commented in Theater Forum Ireland, “There is a need to establish some sense of stability rather than deconstruct the existing infrastructure, which is already fragile.”¹

In any case, the Arts Council has not clearly defined how the system would work in the Irish context. Its most recent publication, Examining New Ways to Fund Theatre, released in June 2009, mentions the term “production hub” only once in a seven-page document. Instead, the document proposes shared production costs, reductions in such fixed costs as administration, and increased funding for a few production companies. To some extent the model already is being executed by arts centers and theater companies around Ireland. For example, The Corn Exchange, Dublin, is mentoring both Randolf S|D and thisis-popbaby by providing administrative and production support, and Rough Magic is sharing its office space with B*Spoke theater company. Regional arts centers also have collaborated to produce major plays. Decadent Theatre’s Juno and the Paycock was produced by the Association of Regional Theatres (Northern Ireland) and Cork Opera House in Winter 2008, and Brian Friel’s The Home Place was produced by An Grianán (Letterkenny) and the Lyric Theatre (Belfast) in early 2009. The Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick lined up a series of...