Theatre Festival set to break new ground

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Máiréad Ní Chróinín, chairperson of the board of Galway Theatre Festival arrives for our interview sporting a vibrant new hair colour – a kind of fiery red-pink, that as dramatic as it’s lovely.

It’s the work of her Polish hairdresser at Kazanoo Hair Studio and appropriately enough, Kazanoo will be transformed into a Festival venue on May 7 at 9pm. It will host The Salon, being performed by Grace Kiely and Catherine Ireton, which is a work in progress about the world of hair salons and how we interact in these places.

That piece is part of the ‘Made in Galway’ strand at this year’s Theatre Festival, which will run from May 1-9 at venues throughout the city.

This is the seventh Galway Theatre Festival but it’s the first time the event has been held in May. The organisers, made up of theatre practitioners from around Galway, initially designated the October Bank Holiday for the event and for several years, that’s when it took place. But to raise its profile they have moved it to May. That means it’s no longer clashing with the Dublin Theatre Festival or the Galway Comedy Festival when it comes to national media coverage, explains Máiréad.

“We needed to take a brave step and make space for Galway Theatre Festival to grow. It was a festival that proved a lot already in terms of locals going out and showing work, and as a platform for other companies nationally,” she explains. The board of the not-for-profit event held a series of consultations last year with practitioners, after which they devised an eight-year plan. This will involve developing relationships and partnerships, allowing the event to grow.

It was “a leap of faith” says Máiréad, a founder member of Galway’s Moonfish Theatre which presented the bilingual hit, Star of the Sea, at last year’s Galway Arts Festival and which cut its teeth in early Galway Theatre Festivals.

Although Moonfish isn’t involved in this year’s event, several individual members are, just with other companies, she says.

The Theatre Festival runs for eight days and includes has three strands of events – ‘Made In Galway’ featuring local artists, as well as work for ‘Midweek’, including a show from Phelim Drew, Down and Out in Paris and London.

There’s also a special ‘Bank Holiday’ strand, says Máiréad

“The idea was to have as many different events as possible over 48 hours so you can go from one to the other, and to have them cheaply priced.”

In addition to various plays and spectacles over the eight days, there will be theatre tours of Galway given by professional tour guide Brendan J Hynes. Encompassing Galway’s rich, but often hidden, theatre history from the middle ages to the present day, these will take place on May 2, 3, and 4 and are suitable for families.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.