The Cream Of Ireland At 1stIrish

George Heslin, of the Origin Theater Company sits down with Vincent Murphy in advance of the 1st Irish Theater Festival which begins next week.

It's a measure of just how much the 1st Irish Festival has established itself in just four years that George Heslin, the power and brains behind it all, received 94 applications this year from theatre companies all over the United States and in Ireland, who wanted to take part.

And that doesn't even include the approaches he had from individual artists.

In the end, the cream of the bunch will be on show throughout September in theatres across New York City.

And many more of them are sure to feature in future editions of the 1st Irish.

It's the only theatre festival anywhere in the world dedicated purely to the work of Irish playwrights - even the Dublin Theater Festival features works by international writers and companies.

Not only that, but all of the Irish-penned plays on show, will be making their US premieres.

It's no wonder that even among jaded New York theatre-goers the festival generates a frisson of excitement.

Heslin, a Limerick native, who studied drama in Trinity College Dublin and treaded the boards for years as an actor, spotted in 2002 that there wasn't a huge amount of Irish theatre making it across the Atlantic.

"If you look at our history on Broadway," Heslin points out, "it has had work by probably 8 to 10 Irish playwrights over the last 40 years.

"And when you look back at the amount of playwrights in Ireland, I felt that there was an opportunity there in terms of working with a lot of the playwrights who I'd come to know in Ireland."

Heslin set up the Origin Theater, which soon gained a reputation for bringing fresh material to the US for the first time.

"Our mission was to launch European playwrights in America - not just Irish," he explains. "We were the first company in the world to produce Mark O'Rowe, we launched Enda Walsh here in America, Abbie Spallon, and a huge amount of others."

Then four years ago, he realized that his audience at Origin were hungry for even more original contemporary Irish theatre.

He set up 1st Irish with just two rules - the work had to be from a playwright born on the island of Ireland, and it must be making its American premiere.

"The festival presents work by playwrights from the island of Ireland, and in four years we've produced work by 62 Irish playwrights in 16 theatres across New York City during the month of September."

So how hard was it making a buzz in a city with so much theatre already?

"One of the first projects I came up with was a play called End of Lines where I brought five playwrights from Ireland and I put them on the subway here in New York for a week. And each playwright had to write a play inspired by each different subway line. And it was ideas like that that engaged communities," he explains.

"Playwrights are great for doing marketing and PR, and it didn't take long for word to spread, certainly among the Irish theatre community in Ireland about the festival here in New York.

"Also through Origin since 2002 we have worked with a huge amount of organizations on the ground here in the city.

"The trick about New York is that you kind of have to be here for a long time before you see how it works, and indeed meeting the right people. A lot of projects pass through New York. On any given day there are 300 theatre companies in the city, believe it or not, and you have to be around for a while before people actually believe in you and start endorsing the project."

He says the facilities available in New York for Off-Broadway theatre improved dramatically during the economic boom of the early 2000s.

"When I first moved here in 1994/5, it actually took me eight months to find the Off Broadway community. Because while now in New York we have fantastic buildings, just like in Ireland, in the mid-90s a lot of these well-known theatre companies were housed in the 3rd or 4th floor of buildings in derelict streets.

"So at the time that I began this journey there wasn't a huge amount of contemporary Irish playwrights. Yes, we had the award winners, the Brian Friel's, the McPhersons, all of those big names.

"But there's a wonderful Irish website called irishplayography.com, and if you go on there, there's probably 400 playwrights writing in Ireland at the moment. And if we say each of those writers has an average ten plays, that's 4,000 plays. That's just a rough estimate.

"And that was the kind of area that intrigued me more: the new generation of playwrights. Because I had worked with a lot, like Mark O'Rowe and Enda Walsh in Ireland, and to this day that is the wave that excites me and I think that's what keeps this festival going, the new energy."

The 1st Irish has proved a springboard for many Irish artists in building their reputations here in the United States, and it offers a particular attraction for smaller Irish companies.

"Coming to New York is a big journey. We have special agreements with the unions here. We are allowed to invite theatre companies directly from Ireland, and that's a big cost saving for the Irish taxpayer and the companies themselves because they are allowed to pay salaries back in Ireland - we don't have to put them onto the high Broadway or Off Broadway contracts."

Heslin has noticed an increased interest in US audiences from the Irish theatre companies since the start of the recession.

"You know for many years, the Irish had a focus on Europe. And I was sitting here in New York for a number of years, and I was frankly amazed. And on a number of occasions I talked about how we have here 300 million people who speak English, and craving Irish culture.

"So since the downturn in Ireland we are definitely seeing a huge upsurge here in people trying to break into New York, certainly with playwrights realizing that there is so much opportunity in a country like America.

"You look at regional theatres across America like the Pittsburgh Public or the Seattle Rep - these companies have budgets of $12-15m and they're just regional theatre companies.

"Another idea with this festival is that, very often when you produce a play in New York, it does get picked up across America. We've brokered deals. For example, there's theatre companies in Washington DC, Las Vegas and when you introduce the playwright here... a lot of those companies haven't heard of these writers until they come through Origin or the Festival.

"So there's a long term gain for Irish theatre as well in that way."

"We have 'A Night with George' from Brass Neck in Belfast written by Brenda Murphy and Donna O'Connor. That's a play that is set in West Belfast and it follows an evening of a woman fantasizing about a night with George Clooney.

"We have the great 'Cirque Legume', which is a very physical theatre piece from a wonderful company with Jamie Carswell from Sligo. That is a circus with vegetables basically and very, very funny.

"We have 'Bogboy' from Deirdre Kinahan. And we have 'Noah and the Tower Flower' which has been a big hit for the Fishamble Theater in Dublin."

Heslin says he's excited to introduce American audiences to these new artists.

"We had Deirdre Kinahan here last year with 'Human Cry' and this is her second visit to the festival. And we have partnered with Fishamble in the past on other projects.

"But for the majority of the playwrights this is the first time that their work has been seen in America."

The 1st Irish has secured the backing of several major sponsors including Mutual of America, the Irish government, Northern Ireland's Arts Council, Aer Lingus and the Irish Examiner USA newspaper.

The festival has also partnered with several venues and theatre companies across the city.

"We work a lot with 59E59 which is on Park Ave and 59th St, this year we are working with 78th St Theatre Lab, the Flea Theater, The American Irish Historical Society, Times Square Arts Centre, Irish Arts Center and Mint Theater among others," says Heslin.

"The key for this Theater Festival is partnering theatre companies with venues here in New York that have a high profile. It's very important because when you arrive here, you really need a network to kind of plug these organizations into. And they are relationships we've built up over the last while too."

"While this is an Irish Theatre Festival, most of our audience goers, as you can imagine in New York, are not Irish. But plugging into the correct venues for that is ever more important."

For more on the 1st Irish Festival, including a full list of shows, venues, dates and times, check out www.1stIrish.org