The Abbey Theatre's artistic director, Mr Ben Barnes, faces a vote of no confidence at an extraordinary general meeting tonight amid mounting criticism of his handling of theatre's artistic direction.
Mr Barnes, who flew back from Australia yesterday where he was touring with a production of Tom Murphy's Gigli Concert, is expected to give a strong defence of his position.
But Abbey shareholders are understood to have been critical of Mr Barnes's absence from Ireland last week when the theatre announced it intends to cut one-third of its workforce.
The shareholders are also said to be angry at box-office figures which show ticket sales have been as low as 28 per cent of seat capacity.
The theatre, which is this year celebrating its centenary, is expected to have afinancial shortfall of €2.51 million by the end of the year.
Mr Barnes said last night he was looking "forward to vigorously articulating my own position."
Asked whether he felt that blame for the theatre's difficulties had been fairly apportioned, Mr Barnes replied: "I think it is not constructive to talk about blame when the problems are so complex and systematic."
Staff at the theatre have called on management to withdraw the restructuring plan that would lead to job cuts and have called for an urgent meeting with the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, Mr John O'Donoghue.
Today Labour's spokesman on the Arts, Mr Jack Wall, called on the Minister to meet with the union representing the workers in an effort to avert the proposed redundancies.
Mr Wall said: "I am calling on the Minister for the Arts, John O'Donoghue to respond positively to the request from SIPTU for a meeting to discuss the proposed redundancies at the Abbey with a view to preventing these job losses."