What do you feel your role is as artistic director of The Project?
I see the role as that of a facilitator. I have the opportunity of giving people the chance to realise their vision. And compared to my previous role at Rough Magic, it’s similar but on a greater scale. So what I’m looking at is securing the future of Project, and at the same time continuing to bring new people through, and continuing to support them. But what we actually have to think about is the legacy of Project and where it will go in the future.
And how are you influencing where it goes in the future?
In a practical sense it’s about fundraising and making sure there’s money. Securing the Project financially, which it is now, but even having more – having more money to give artists to fund the cultural landscape. In a creative sense it’s about maintaining Project’s role as a crucible and catalyst for new art, new ways of practicing art, new ways of producing.
There seems to have been a much greater focus on visual arts recently than there was before, for example the Conjuring for Beginners exhibition during the summer, and then The Forgotten Works sculpture. Was that intentional?
It was interesting to have Conjuring for Beginners on because it made totally different use of the theatre space, made you engage with it differently. You had theatre people come in and wonder how long the exhibition would be there for, and you had visual arts people come in and enjoy seeing a new exhibition space. The Project isn’t a theatre, it’s an arts centre. When we’re programming a show, myself and Tessa Giblin will also think about what other exhibitions and visual art will work with it. They’re not separate, they’re connected and all part of the experience of Project.
What can we expect in November?
We’ve got The Yellow Wallpaper with Maeve Fitzgerald directed by Aoife Spillane-Hinks who is a really fantastic young director. They did it last year in the Boys School in Smock Alley in a sort of site-specific way, so it will be interesting to see it done again in a theatre setting. We’re very interested in revival and development here. Then there’s the Ullyses adaptation written by Dermot Bolger in association with the Glasgow Tron Theatre which we’re really excited about. At the end of the month we will also be having a really brilliant young company, Sugarglass, put on Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm. They had an incredible show in The Fringe, All Hell Lay Beneath – they’re making bold statements so it’ll be interesting to see if they pull it off. There will also be the Text|Messages which was very successful last year.
If you had a limitless budget who would you programme for The Project from what you saw in the Fringe and the Theatre Festival?
Ooo… I think what was interesting about the festivals was that the high-lights for me were often the Irish shows, which has not always been the case. In the Fringe loved Conor Madden’s Ur-Hamlet, Paper Dolls who won Spirit of The Fringe were incredible. But one of my favourites was CAMPO’s Mystery Magnet – there were no words which I loved, it was very playful, imaginative and brilliant.
Ulysses: 6th– 24th November
Text|Messages: 13th – 15th November
The Yellow Wallpaper: 19th-24th November
Tender Napalm: 27th November – 8th December
