When you hear that the Melbourne Festival spends five million Australian dollars, getting on for £2 million, on the theatre element of its programme, it kind of puts things in perspective. Last year's Abbey production, The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde by Thomas Kilroy is travelling there this year, and a shopper from the festival is due again in town, as is one from the Toronto Festival.
Siobhan Bourke, late of Rough Magic, now of many film projects, always understood the degree of opportunity which exists for our theatre in the wider world. The Theatre Shop runs for the fifth year on Friday, October 16th at the Coach House, Dublin Castle, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the theatre industry is cordially invited to attend to make contacts and learn more about international (and cross-border) touring.
This year there will be representatives from the Avignon Festival, from the Comedie de Reims, from EntreScenen in Aarhus, Denmark, from the Association of Finnish Theatres, from the Anexa Touring Agency, Madrid, from the New York Theatre Workshop and from the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, among others. And for the first time, on the shop's initiative, The Irish Theatre Handbook, a guide to dance and drama in Ireland, will be published, edited by Loughlin Deegan.
To book for the Theatre Shop phone Martin Munroe on 01- 6719278
Opening Tonight
Main Festival: Stars In The Morning Sky presented by the Maly Theatre of St. Petersburg, Gaiety Theatre 8 p.m.
Fringe: Purgatory, a new opera by Michael Scott, RHA Gallagher Gallery, 8 p.m.
Recommended
The clamorously acclaimed new Wexford production of Amphibians by Billy Roche at Andrews Lane Theatre, 8 p.m., until Saturday.
