ArtScape: Irish actor Brian F O'Byrne is in contention to win his second Tony Award when the prizes are presented at Radio City Music Hall in New York tomorrow night, while fellow Irishman John Crowley is shortlisted as best director, writes Michael Dwyer. Broadway's equivalent of Hollywood's Oscars, the Tonys are the most prestigious prizes in US theatre.
Born in Mullagh, Co Cavan, O'Byrne (37) is nominated for John Patrick Shanley's play, Doubt, set in 1964 at a Catholic school in the Bronx, with O'Byrne as a priest subjected to a witch-hunt by a nun who suspects him of paedophilia. This is O'Byrne's fourth Tony nomination in seven years, following those for Martin McDonagh's plays, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1998) and The Lonesome West (1999), and Bryony Lavery's Frozen, which won O'Byrne the Tony for best featured actor award last year. He was last seen on stage in Ireland two years ago in Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, and he plays Clint Eastwood's parish priest in Million Dollar Baby.
McDonagh's new play, The Pillowman, which has received rave reviews on Broadway, has six Tony nominations, including best play, best actor (Billy Crudup) and best director (Cork native John Crowley, who made his feature film debut with Intermission). The Pillowman and Doubt are shortlisted for best new play with August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean and Michael Frayn's Democracy. Crowley's fellow nominees for the best direction of a play are Doug Hughes (Doubt), Joe Mantello (Glengarry Glen Ross) and Scott Ellis (Twelve Angry Men).
Joining Crudup and O'Byrne in the nominations for best leading actor in a play are James Earl Jones (On Golden Pond), Philip Bosco (Twelve Angry Men) and Bill Irwin (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). The nominees for best leading actress in a play are Cherry Jones (Doubt), Kathleen Turner (Virginia Woolf), Phylicia Rashad (Gem of the Ocean), Mary-Louise Parker (Reckless) and Laura Linney (Sight Unseen).
Imma gets Bourgeois
One of the surprise hits at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) in recent years was the exhibition by Louise Bourgeois, the French-born, New York-based sculptor whose work has attracted increasing acclaim in the last few decades, writes Aidan Dunne. At Imma from November 2003 to February 2004, the show was extremely popular and travelled on to Edinburgh, Malaga and Miami. Such was the demand that the catalogue was reprinted twice.
To mark the success of the show, Bourgeois has made Imma a gift of one of the exhibited pieces, an untitled, stitched, fabric head in a glass vitrine. One of a suite of seven it is, typically for the artist, a rather eerie object, obviously fabricated yet at the same time curiously, and disturbingly, alive. Bourgeois absorbed Modernist influences and reshaped them to her own ends in intense works that explore identity, relationships, power and sexuality.
The gift is a boon to Imma's holdings of sculpture. The museum already has significant pieces by such artists as Barry Flanagan, Michael Craig-Martin, Gary Hume, Cristina Iglesias, Dorothy Cross and Alice Maher. It has also had the world-leading Weltkunst collection of contemporary British sculpture on loan, but what will become of that remains to be seen.
Music to traditional ears
The traditional arts world is celebrating following the recent Arts Council announcement of a €3 million funding commitment for 2006, writes Siobhán Long. This fourfold increase represents a significant shift in thinking by the Arts Council in relation to support for the traditional arts, and follows the publication of the report of the Special Committee on the Traditional Arts in September 2004. The funding is part of a larger three-year initiative which aims to integrate traditional arts within the mainstream of Arts Council activities.
Liz Doherty was appointed traditional arts consultant to the Arts Council on foot of last year's report, and many consider the recent announcement to be a reflection of Doherty's understanding of the tradition, as a musician as well as an administrator. Asked to outline her main priorities for the proposed windfall, Doherty has identified a number of key areas which will be crucial to the success of the funding commitment.
"Stabilising existing key players and consolidating a basic infrastructure for the traditional arts, artists and arts practices" are top of the list, and it is assumed that this would mean increased funding for the Irish Traditional Music Archive and may even encompass financial support to musicians whose role has been crucial in passing on the tradition with little or no monetary gain over many years.
Another key strand, according to Doherty, will be "to develop new funding initiatives to enable the traditional arts community to engage with the Arts Council". Doherty has plans to implement a short-term proposal-based application process to enable individual traditional artists, bands and small organisations to apply for funding for traditional arts projects and/or collaborative projects with other art forms. Of particular interest to traditional musicians is the news that the Arts Council "will establish itself as an advocate for traditional arts in education, broadcasting, royalties and rights for artists".
Further good news was forthcoming from the Arts Council in its award of second-round funding to small festivals. A total of 21 out of 24 applicants succeeded in securing funding from €1,000 to €4,500. Festivals funded include Féile Frank McGann, Feakle International Traditional Music Festival and Cúil Aodha's Éigse Dhiarmuid Úi Shuilleabháin.
In addition, eight traditional artists are among the recent recipients of bursaries, including revered Co Donegal fiddler Tommy Peoples (who was awarded €12,000), dancer Colin Dunne (€10,000), and charismatic Cavan musician Martin Donohoe (€4,450). Further details of the Arts Council's plans will be published in the draft policy document on the traditional arts within the next fortnight.
Spike Island setback
Between one thing and another, Cork's Capital of Culture programme has had a fairly bumpy ride. Now it seems as if the visual arts strand, which has had some problems, has encountered another setback.
Great things were expected of Monte Notte, a collaborative project involving two of Cork's finest, actor Fiona Shaw and visual artist Dorothy Cross. Both are highly respected practitioners in their respective fields and Cross has previously been involved in an intriguing collaboration with the Opera Theatre Company. She is uniquely qualified to take on the theme of the city's salubrious villa precinct given that she was brought up, as she says, not just in Montenotte but in Montenotte House.
The snag is that the event, scheduled for August, was designed specifically to take place on Spike Island - and Fort Mitchel Prison on Spike Island has, in the meantime, been spiked, leading to the prospect of industrial action on the part of prison officers. While the prison authorities on Spike Island have been consistently supportive of the project, the current situation means it is uncertain at this stage whether the island can be made available. (\
Opera with a difference
After four years, it's difficult to remember which came first - the chicken or the festival. One thing's for sure, Opera Fringe and its emblematic flock of Rhode Island Reds have become inseparable and, like the festival itself, endearingly idiosyncratic. While Castleward Opera attracts to the shores of Strangford Lough the traditional opera set, with its trappings of long frocks, dinner jackets, hampers and champers, along the road in Downpatrick, the quirkier fringe version has carved out a rather different profile.
Artistic adviser Randall Shannon and director Cathie McKimm have become an effective creative team, blending passion and expertise with refreshing humour. At the launch of this year's programme, Shannon said: "It's true that we do tend to take a rather lighthearted approach to our programming, but never at the cost of quality. The festival has always been at pains to underline that opera is very far from being just a serious business."
The programme includes the songs of Tom Lehrer; Philip Wells the Fire Poet with tabla player Sirishkumar; female trio Primadiva; the Brian Irvine Ensemble with soprano Morag McLaren; and Hatstand Opera's 120 Lovers and Counting. Framing the musical events is a night of midsummer magic (with masked dancers, puppets and circus), exhibitions, lectures and workshops . . . all celebrating the Chinese Year of the Rooster.
Opera Fringe runs from June 9 to 25: www.operafringe.com; 048-44615283