Cork 2005: As summer brings a child-centred cultural programme spanning the city, it seems fitting that the first event celebrates the 21st birthday of Graffiti Theatre Company.
Dedicated to contemporary youth and school productions, the company was founded by Emelie FitzGibbon (still its artistic director) and Laura Magahy. It remains the only professional youth theatre in Munster.
By now it can claim to have reached more than a million young people with over 60 different productions in Irish and English and performances in Ireland, France, the United Kingdom and America.
Reviewing Graffiti's list of achievements for the big birthday party at the Bodega last week, FitzGibbon said while she was proud of the way Graffiti had developed its outreach programme (now directed by Geraldine O'Neill), probably the major success had been the company's ability to attract playwrights and offer commissions.
Among 31 new scripts since 1984 had been Enda Walsh's first professional script, and two plays from Ray Scannell, whose A Day in the Life of a Pencil is being revived for a touring schedule in September. Mike Kenny is adapting The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen for the company in December.
Funded by the Arts Council, the Department of Education and Science, Foras na Gaeilge and Cork City Council, the company will shortly exchange its premises in Shandon for the former chapel of the Assumption Convent in Blackpool.
The redundant convent is to become a centre for the rehabilitation of homeless young people, but the attractive chapel, needing only some minor changes, will be Graffiti's new home and one which gives the company, for the first time, an auditorium of its own.
