The aims of the National Campaign for the Arts are;

- Maintenance of current levels of funding to the Arts Council

- Retention of Culture Ireland, the agency for the promotion of Irish arts worldwide

- Retention of The Irish Film Board, development agency of the Irish film industry

- Retention of the artists’ income tax exemption scheme

- Commitment to retain the arts portfolio at cabinet as part of a senior ministerial portfolio

Sign their petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/ncfa/p... . It takes 2 minutes!

Commedia Workshops for New and Experienced Players
led by Annie Ryan, artistic director of The Corn Exchange

Annie Ryan invites you to come play, explore and stretch the boundaries and possibilities of the style in an intensive workshop looking at the principles of ensemble physical theatre practice.

PLEASE NOTE UPDATED DETAILS:
Venue: LEINSTER CRICKET CLUB, Observatory Lane, Rathmines
Date: Mon 7th Dec - Thurs 10th Dec
Cost: €120*

Schedule:

9am – 10am Yoga class followed by breakfast
Session 1. 10.45am – 1.30pm

Session 2. 2.15pm – 5pm

How to apply:
For anyone interested in these workshops please apply by email with a brief cv / description of experience and a headshot to hello@cornexchange.ie. Closing date for applications is Fri 20th November, 2009. For more information please contact Aine at The Corn Exchange at 087 970 3894 or email hello@cornexchange.ie.

Please note that places at the Workshops are strictly limited to 20 and submission of details does not guarantee a place on the programme. Successful applicants will be notified by Friday 27th November

*Payment in full required from successful applicants on acceptance to secure place. Payments can be made by cheque, cash or postal order.

Our mailing address is:
The Corn Exchange The Priory John Street West Dublin 8, . .

Our telephone:
087 970 3894

The revolution will be digitised. Set in Ireland in 2014, Emmet Kirwan’s new play for Dublin Youth Theatre depicts a future of tech-savvy school students contending with State tyranny and a resurgent hardline Nationalism – conditions they consider borderline fascist, unconstitutional and, like, totally unfair. Such is the balancing act in director Willie White’s production, which must not only accommodate 21 performers, but also marry amplified political concerns to the daily quiet dramas of young individuals.

It isn’t an easy ask and Kirwan – a DYT graduate, performer and writer – is extended further by his scrupulousness. Giving most characters equal attention, he distributes his better lines evenly among the throng and tries on competing writing styles to contain their sprawling narratives. The first is poetry, where a corridor mill of students introduce themselves through rhyme: “Every generation experiences a different type of youth/ Exploding lyrical style of words and truth”. But that scheme is quickly traded for more standard-issue group patter, where Kirwan works hard to establish individual characterisation among future-

proof milieus: pheromone-addled knuckleheads, bitchy covens, earnest new kids in school, widely-vilified drama kids and would-be political leaders.

“Stop the deportations”, goes one clarifying student slogan, and the thrust of Half 3 Heroes becomes one of rebellion. In a dystopian school system within a shackled Republic, students named Kwame have been spirited away, while first generation Irish citizens with Polish or Kosovan parents face similar threats. That this ethnic panoply is not conspicuously present on the stage or among the cast seems slightly jarring. Is the future already here? Staging their own coup d’école , the students hole up in a gymnasium to broadcast their struggle via Bebo, but while the cast is consistently engaging, the production loses the verve of insurrection behind a checklist of youth concerns, its pace slackening between nods to bullying, underage drinking, fitting in or standing apart. More successfully, White and Kirwan draw subversive parallels between revolutions past and present. As the students reel off declarations, hoist flags, or bicker themselves into competing factions of idealists and destroyers, the Easter Rising is wickedly restaged. More subtly, Kirwan wonders what makes a leader now, his ideologues, populists and anarchists vying for position.

Ultimately little is solved and one student understandably worries, “Do you think we’ll ever become like them?” The answer might be a manifesto worthy of an uprising or a youth theatre. “We’ll grow old like them, but we must not become tired.” PETER CRAWLEY