WHEN Liam Rellis left his job in Bell Lines three years ago to manage a small regional theatre company it seemed a risky career move.
Ironically, while the Red Kettle company is engaged in a perennial struggle to maintain financial viability, his new job has turned out to be less precarious than those of his former co-workers at Bell.
Red Kettle, a professional company based in Waterford City but widely known elsewhere, last week picked up a crystal star to add to its collection of awards for high-quality work.
The Waterford Crystal/WLRfm Arts and Entertainment Award was presented for the company's latest production, The Stomping Ground, a new play by Loughlin Deegan. Red Kettle has since taken it to Limerick, Longford and Dublin.
With a core audience of only around 2,500 in its home base, and a limit on the seat prices that a local audience will tolerate, the company has to tour most of its main productions to try to get some return for the high costs of staging a professional show.
As a new company back in the mid-1980s, Red Kettle made its name early. But fame brings heavy demands, Liam Rellis points out, particularly in the cost of staging a professional production to national standards.
However, the development of expertise and equipment in lighting, sound, sets and so on has given Red Kettle an important resource role in the area, and it is generally involved in technical support of almost everything that is staged in the city.
With its Arts Council grant of £150,000, Red Kettle notched up 42 production weeks last year, including four or five weeks of professional theatre in Waterford.
An important outreach activity in the local community is Red Kettle's annual children's summer project. Some 470 children between the ages of nine and 11 have been auditioned already this year, and this number is gradually being whittled down to 40 talented youngsters, who will perform in a specially written production.