Carrie Crowley, known more for her media roles, particularly her Sunday morning interviews on RTÉ Radio 1, returns to acting next month for the Performance Corporation's new play for the Kilkenny Arts Festival.
Crowley is in The Yokohama Delegation, a new play by Tom Swift, described as a "satire on the modern world's insatiable desire for success, which melds Greek myth and Technicolor office comedies". The site-specific production at Desart House on New Street follows the company's successful romp through medieval Kilkenny last year in Dr Ledbetter's Experiment.
Kilkenny Arts Festival's programme was announced by board chairman John Purcell last night at a party entertained by Mairead Buicke, Opera Theatre Company's "Young Associate Artist".
Other key events at this year's festival, from August 12th to 21st, include British choir Ex Cathedra performing two concerts in the medieval St Canice's Cathedral: Rachmaninov's Vespers, and Latin-American Vespers - Moon, Sun and All Things, a celebration of the music of the jungles and cathedrals of 17th and 18th-century Bolivia, Mexico and Peru.
There will be new work from artist John Shinnors at Butler House, architectural installations from Sean Lynch, an Irish premiere of Amanda Coogan's Aishling 2005 (she stands like a statue holding an AK47) and work from artists Melanie O'Rourke, Nicholas Keogh, Paddy Bloomer and Gerard Byrne.
A restored original cut of Theodor Dreyer's 1928 classic Le Passion de Jeanne d'Arc will be screened with a live performance of a new soundtrack composed by 3epkano. The Irish Youth Wind Ensemble presents a "last night of the proms" including Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
Abdul Salam Kheir and lutenist and theorbo player David Miller present Arabian Delights and Baroque Gems. Other music includes Spanish quartet Cuarteto Casals, Jaojoby from Madagascaar, Altan, Argentinian guitarist Ariel Hernandez playing tango with Irish classical accordionist Dominic Dunne, and a celebration of Latin culture.
Award-winning Canadian novelist (and IMPAC short-listed) Guy Vanderhaeghe and Irish poet, playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry will read, as will children's writers Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) and Marita Conlon McKenna.
Following the resignation of Kilkenny Arts Festival's artistic director Claudia Woolgar earlier this year, the festival was programmed by a committee of experts in different fields.