Playing on the world stage

The continuing success of Irish drama abroad is important not only for Ireland's international profile but also for the new work it makes possible, especially in difficult economic times. But this global reach is no accident, as SARA KEATINGfinds out from some of those who have helped to make it happen

BY THE END of 2009, international audiences will have had a chance to see more than 38 touring performances by Irish theatre and dance companies this year, in venues as exotic as Buenos Aires and Bulgaria (Gare St Lazare Players' First Love) and as familiar as London and New York (Druid Theatre, The Walworth Farceand The New Electric Ballroom); with work as traditionally Irish in form and content as Sebastian Barry's The Pride of Parnell Street(Fishamble, the New Play Company) and as theatrically challenging as The Crumb Trail(Pan Pan Theatre). Irish clowns have performed in Palestine (Clowns Without Borders), contemporary Irish dancers have danced across South America (Rex Levitates), and Irish street artists have lit up the sky in Tarrega (LUX e).

Crossing cultural as well as geographical boundaries, the impact that such performances have had in promoting Ireland on a global scale cannot be over-stated in such a challenging funding climate for the arts. Many artists emphasise how vital the establishment of Culture Ireland in 2005 has been to the growth in opportunity for international touring and partnership. “I don’t think you can over-emphasise how significant its investment has been , and how it has changed the landscape of possibility for Irish artists,” says one, who wishes to remain anonymous. “Nor can you over-emphasise the value of the return, in terms of Ireland’s profile internationally.”

However, little is known about the backstage work involved in building the relationships that enable these partnerships to happen; how, for example, Gavin Kostick's epic five-hour recitation of Heart of Darknessarrives at a London festival or Barabbas's Circusends up in a makeshift tent in Connecticut.

Over the last few years, the focal point for Irish touring has become International Theatre Exchange, cannily scheduled during the Dublin Theatre Festival, where Irish artists, national venues and international promoters make tentative overtures towards each other, in the hope of finding kindred creative spirits from which a future tour for artists or a future repertoire for venues might be shaped.

According to Siobhán Bourke and Jane Daly of the Irish Theatre Institute, producers of the conference, “the event is mutually beneficial, in that it brings together artists and those that might be interested in showcasing their work abroad – but the benefits do not stop there. The work that goes out of the country is 99 per cent made with Arts Council money (ie, taxpayers’ money). By ensuring that the work has as long a life as possible, there are ways of getting real value for money out of that investment. It is just sensible finance, it makes economic sense. It also feeds back into the landscape of Irish theatre, as international touring often pays for re-mounting the production, which can then be seen in Ireland too, on the way or the way back from, host countries.”

The scheduling of the networking event alongside the Dublin Theatre Festival is not coincidental, given that the event is a partnership between the festival, Culture Ireland and the Irish Theatre Institute. Dublin Theatre Festival works as a natural showcase for Irish companies because, as Bourke explains, having a showcase is “particularly important for theatre, as it is not an easy art form to sell in other formats”, while artists are given a chance to meet international promoters and curators, and to “pitch” their repertoire in response to demand for international “touring packages”. Gavin Quinn, of Pan Pan Theatre, says the fact that the event enables “people to meet with the artists is vital, because it is not just a trade fair, it is a relationship-building exercise”.

THIS RELATIONSHIP-BUILDINGis particularly important for the In Development strand that was incorporated into the Dublin Theatre Festival programme last year. As festival director Loughlin Deegan explains, it provides an opportunity for promoters to "get involved at an earlier stage in the work", which is particularly important in "these challenging times as co-financing or co-production become important options". Pan Pan Theatre, which showcased the earliest incarnation of The Crumb Trailat last year's festival, has exemplified the benefits of this approach, with the work attracting partnership from the FFT (Forum Freies Theater) in Düsseldorf, where it premiered in October 2008, before returning to the Dublin Theatre Festival this October.

“On a practical level, important because they create momentum and longevity for your work, but also they enable you to employ people for 24 rather than six weeks of the year,” says Pan Pan’s Gavin Quinn. “But artistically it is also important, because it allows you to make work for different audiences, to experiment with a new language for theatre, one which transcends the local. It allows your work to respond to the global context, and that feeds into the work, which you then bring back to its local origins.”

As Quinn suggests, without international input, the work would not be possible artistically or financially.

Sherrie Johnson, senior curator of January’s annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver, sees the international dimension of theatre production as a natural reaction to the international economic crisis.

“From a resource point of view, each country has experienced a funding crisis, with our taxpayer dollars needed elsewhere,” she says. “So in order to continue to have artistic growth, we have to take up the model of other kinds of business organisations and share resources through co-producing or co-financing in order to make larger – hey, even smaller-scale – productions happen.”

In fact, Johnson herself has been involved in an exciting co-commission with Cork Midsummer Festival, which will come to fruition in 2011. After meeting Midsummer artistic director William Galinsky on a bus journey during a similar showcasing event in Scotland, the seeds for a new opera based on the 1985 Air India tragedy – a shared piece of cultural history – were sown. With a libretto by Michael West, the opera will be co-funded as a partnership between the Midsummer Festival, PuSh and the Canadian Contemporary Music Centre in Banff.

The arrival of international programmers, such as Johnson, in Dublin is no accident. As Jane Daly explains, the international contingent are “hand-picked by the International Theatre Institute, in collaboration with Culture Ireland and the festival. When the ReViewed and In Development strands of the Dublin Theatre Festival are curated we think about who would be likely to be interested in that work, but also what connections they have. We go to great lengths to scout out suitable matches for Irish artists and producers, based on existing relationships but also on their contacts. With one key participant, for example, you can open up the whole of east-coast America – you don’t want to go all the way to America for just one short run, it doesn’t make sense. We target specific people so that resources are used in the most productive way.”

As Jim Culleton, artistic director of Fishamble, whose production of The Pride of Parnell Streetrecently finished a successful five-week run in New York, puts it: "It's not just important who you talk to, it's who's talking to each other that often creates the opportunities." Culleton sees touring as essential to the work that Fishamble does. "The reality is that we can only afford to do a single new work in a year, maybe two if we are really really lucky. Touring gives our productions a longer life, and it allows our actors, writers and designers to continue to work throughout the year, as well as increasing our international profile and the of Irish theatre."

BUT TOURING ISnot just a matter of networking and scouting out funding opportunities. There are practical concerns too, which often come into consideration before a tour is booked, as Tim Smith, general manager of Druid, explains. "It's dealing with bookers, producers, agents, unions," he says. "It's building multiple sets to offset transport costs and ensure the stage is there in time for the actors to perform on."

There are decisions to be made about how those sets will be designed and built, and whether they will be transportable or rebuilt on foreign shores. There are the differences in per diems in Iceland and India to work out. There are visa applications, bureaucratic red tape and labyrinthine negotiations with American Equity, which insists that co-productions are co-cast between Irish and American actors. (Druid's 2008 co-production of The Cripple of Inismaanwith New York's Atlantic Theater was one adventurous way of dealing with the issue.)

But it’s worth it. As Sherrie Johnson puts it, “cultural export and import is the way forward for all types of future relations in the world, and the cultural sector has a fundamental role to play in international trade and partnership. But exchange and collaboration is also vital to the artistic and personal growth of creative artists.”

Mike Griffiths, administrative director of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, who has been coming to the Dublin Theatre Festival’s various networking events for 16 years, agrees. “It’s not one-way,” he says. “Yes, we are looking for work for our theatre, but we are also sharing ideas.”

Druid's production of The Gigli Concert, by Tom Murphy, is on nationwide tour; druidtheatre.com. Fishamble's production of Forgotten, by Pat Kinevane, will run from Feb 17 to Mar 7 2010 at the Irish Arts Center, New York; fishamble.com. Pan Pan's production of Oedipus Loves You is at the Sydney Festival and the Brisbane Powerhouse from Jan 23 to Feb 6. Culture Ireland's next deadline for grant applications is Feb 15; cultureireland.gov.ie