Madam, – I am writing in response to your chief critic Peter Crawley's misgiving about The Abbey Theatre's commitment to new writing vis-a-vis The Fairer Sexplay readings. (The Ticket, 5th June 2009).
The Abbey Theatre is a commissioning house and a producing theatre.
This year we will present five new play premieres on our two stages.
We currently have 25 writers under commission to write full-length plays.
We are piloting a new playwrights programme to be formally launched in 2010 and we run an annual short play reading series for writers who have never worked at The Abbey before.
This year's series, The Fairer Sex, includes plays by six women. Our approach privileges the writing process and provides a rigorous dramaturgical response to two drafts of each script.
The rehearsal period prioritises script work over staging.
The short play offers the challenge to write in a highly concentrated form and gives accomplished monologue writers the opportunity to write dialogue.
Four of the participating writers in last year’s reading series are now, in fact, under full commission.
It’s odd that Mr Crawley finds reason to diminish this strategy while also claiming – in an interview in the same edition of The Ticket – that Phillip McMahon’s “brilliant short piece for the Abbey” reading series in 2008 “cemented his reputation as a writer to be reckoned with”.
Play readings are no substitute for productions but they are an important part of our ongoing engagement with talented Irish playwrights. – Yours, etc,