Six new plays compete for the coveted Jerome Hynes One-Act-Play Award

NUI Galway is celebrating Drama in many forms during its Theatre Week, which runs from 10 to 14 March. Now in its fifth year, the event showcases through theatre, literature and film, the many talents of NUI Galway students, societies and alumni.

The week features the popular Jerome Hynes One-Act Play Series with six new plays. The playwrights have been mentored through the process and one of the highlights of the week will be the Omnibus Edition for all the plays, with an award ceremony of the coveted Jerome Hynes best play award on Friday, 14 March in the Cube Theatre at 6pm. Since the inauguration of the series in 2001, many of the playwrights have gone on to win national and international awards and acclaim and to see their work produced professionally, and many new theatre companies have emerged from the process. 

This year the NUI Galway’s Centre for Drama will present Frank McGuinness’s adaptation of Sophocles’ Electra, running from 9-11 March at 8pm, with two 10am shows on the 10 and 11 March. Frank McGuinness will attend the Monday morning performance, followed by a talk.

Theatre Week will also feature a schools outreach programme with Shakespeare Workshops from ThereisBear! Theatre Company. This vibrant young company, with its roots in NUI Galway, will bring the visiting students on an in-depth journey of the scripts of Macbeth, Othello and The Merchant of Venice. Bookings for the workshops and performance are still being taken for any interested schools.

Cyclone Rep will make a welcome return to campus with their version of Julius Caesar, inspired by Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island where a forbidden copy of Julius Caesar helped Mandela cope with his confinement. Mandela’s inspiration has, in turn, inspired Cyclone Rep to revisit the play in an Irish context.  The time is 1981 and the place is Northern Ireland and an illegal copy of Julius Caesar is performed by prisoners struggling with their internment and the spectre of the hunger strikes.

Drama will be plentiful with Dramsocs’ production of a new adaptation of George Orwell’s masterpiece 1984, directed and adapted by Chris Moran. It runs nightly at 8.30pm in the Bank of Ireland Theatre.

As part of the Arts in Action Programme, Anam Theatre presents Granuaile. Directed by Sarah O’Toole, Granuaile will take place on Thursday, 13 at 1pm in the Bank of Ireland Theatre.

The Galway University Musical Society (GUMS), who recently wowed audiences with their production of The Drowsy Chaperone in the Black Box, are setting themselves the task of casting, producing and performing a mini musical in 14 days.

The GIG (Gay in Galway) Society is hosting a Variety Show with MC drag queen Pixie Woo. The week will also include an Improv night with Dramsoc and the Comedy Society, a series of theatrical films from Filmsoc and an exhibition by the Art Society in Aras na Mac Léinn.

The India Society will be celebrating Holi, the Festival of Colours, on campus on Thursday, 14 from 3-5pm beside the IT building.  Holi commemorates the victory of good over evil and the end of winter and the coming of spring and is celebrated by putting coloured powders on friends, families and strangers alike.

Festival Director and NUI Galway Societies Officer, Riona Hughes, said: “The week is an opportunity for us to welcome our friends in the wider community onto campus to celebrate the great tradition of drama in NUI Galway. We are delighted to welcome our professional guest companies and to afford our students and staff an opportunity to showcase their talents and the importance of theatre to the University. We will have three venues in operation and over 40 individual performances over the five days, new writing and new takes on the classics.”

Information and tickets are available from The SocsBox, Áras na Mac Leinn, on 091 492852 or socsbox@socs.nuigalway.ie. Full details of each event can be found at www.nuigsocs.wix.com/theatreweek.    

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