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Manhattan’s Irish Theatre Festival
Irish playwright Billy Roche performs a story from his collection Tales From Rainwater Pond at the Irish Theatre Festival.
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hen Limerick-born George Heslin, 37, founded his Origin Theatre Company here in Manhattan back in 2002, his goal was to produce exciting new European (often Irish) plays. But by last year Origin’s artistic mission had expanded to include an entire Irish Theatre Festival in Manhattan. It was a mad idea, given all the financial constraints of operating a fledgling festival and considering New York’s distance from the old sod. But it worked. In fact, it’s been such a critical and cultural hit that within a year it has more than doubled in size. Last year’s festival featured 13 plays by Irish writers. This year’s festival will highlight work by 21 playwrights and offer over 26 events, including live Irish theatre and panel discussions with academics and artists from Ireland and the U.S. Just reading the festival program, which runs to 48 pages, gives you an idea of the ambition and scope of the month-long event, which opened September 1. From the beginning Origin’s mission was to produce exciting new American premières of European plays. Last year, to test the waters, the festival was a lively mix of old and new Irish works and classics. This year there are many banner Irish names participating. Plays by Sebastian Barry, Conor McPherson, Dermot Bolger, Paula Meehan, and celebrated Irish playwright and screenwriter Billy Roche are included in the lineup. In Roche’s case it’s a rare opportunity to catch the Wexford-born playwright on a New York stage. Roche’s short stories, taken from his recent collection Tales from Rainwater Pond, attracted widespread interest from readers and fellow writers alike when they were published. One of their most ardent admirers was fellow Irish playwright Conor McPherson, who recently turned one of Roche’s stories into a joltingly weird new film (which he also directed). The Eclipse, starring Aidan Quinn and Ciaran Hinds, which Roche wrote and McPherson co-adapted, wowed audiences at the recent Tribeca
Film Festival in New York and will go on release here later this year (Roche himself makes a cameo appearance as the Festival Director). To some an Irish playwriting festival may be a redundant proposition – doesn’t everyone in Ireland write plays? – but as Heslin’s program amply demonstrates, the diversity of experience and the immediacy of the Irish theatrical voice is as strong as it ever was: stronger now, in fact. – Cahir O’Doherty
William Kennedy Wins O’Neill Award
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, WWW.ONEILLAWARD.ORG
ulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy (left) will be presented with the inaugural 2009 Eugene O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish American Writers and Artists, Inc. (IAW&A) in Manhattan on October 16, Eugene O'Neill's birthday. As the first winner of the award, Kennedy is honored for his authorship of the Albany Cycle of novels centered around the Irish-American Phelan family (Legs, Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, and Ironweed) as well as his addi-
tional five novels, three nonfiction works, and two screenplays, not to mention stage plays, essays and children's books. Kennedy won a 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Ironweed. The Eugene O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award will be given annually to an IrishAmerican writer or other artist whose body of work, like Eugene O'Neill's, represents the pinnacle of creative achievement. William Kennedy remarked, "I never made plans to be Irish, and I never thought of myself as an
Irish-American writer. Just a writer was how I saw it. But after getting this award I’m now irrevocably confirmed as both. I’m abundantly grateful to the Irish American Writers and Artists for singling out my work, and the fact that Eugene O’Neill’s illustrious name goes with it is magical. He was one of my heroes when I began as a writer, and he still is today. His work shines with a perpetual light, as the Irish say in church. This is a wonderful honor." – Kara Rota
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