THE LINE-UP for this year’s Galway Theatre Festival, which runs from October 25 to 31, was unveiled at a well attended reception in Massimo’s bar on Monday evening.
What started as a four day festival of local drama based solely in Nuns Island Theatre has now become a week long platform for local and national companies to present work in venues throughout Galway city.
This year Druid Lane Theatre has come on board to join the festival hub – Nuns Island Theatre - and the Town Hall Theatre in hosting more than 20 performances. This year’s festival boasts an exciting line-up comprising world premieres, modern classics, devised pieces, revivals, readings, and more besides.
Guest of honour at the launch reception was Labour’s Galway West TD Michael D Higgins, who delivered a typically eloquent and entertaining speech to mark the occasion.
Saluting the contribution to the city made by its artists, Higgins observed that “Galway city owes an enormous amount to people who have been taking risks. The real people who have not invented any bubble but have created what is left of our reputation are the arts and cultural community.”
Speaking about the festival itself, he continued: “In any form of stage production the flux of life is being celebrated both in terms of its unrealised joy and pain and insights and so forth.
“And it is done not only through words and language but through the delivery of the person and the body and the imagination and the memory. It is that that keeps theatre alive. This is what is happening now and [this festival] is building up to being something wonderful.”
Certainly, the continued growth of Galway Theatre Festival is testament to the local appetite for all things dramatic and celebratory. Among the notable productions in this year’s programme are new company Banjaxed with Sarah Kane’s provocative Blasted; Tyger Theatre with Colm O’Byrne’s new play Freefall, and Mephisto with Tara McKevitt’s Grenades, winner of the 2010 PJ O’Conor Award.
Little John Nee brings a welcome revival of one of his best-loved shows The Derry Boat while Aindrias de Staic performs his new show The Makralaytors.
Full details of the programme can be obtained at www.
galwaytheatre festival.com Tickets are priced at €12/10 and bookings can be made via the Town Hall theatre on 091 - 569777.
