Abbey Theatre - Amharclann na Mainistreach

Since last April the participants have attended a total of forty-one workshops, talks, dress rehearsals and opening nights as part of the Programme. Throughout this time each playwright has also been working on a new play. The writers have brought their plays through a number of drafts and have had continuous dramaturgical input over the year from New Playwrights Programme Manager, Bryan Delaney, who has helped to guide and shape the progression of each play.

From 17 to 22 January, as the culmination of this process, each play was given a day-long workshop at the Abbey. A special company of actors was assembled specifically to work on this project and the workshops were directed by Sophie Motley and Annabelle Comyn, who directed three workshops each.

The actors functioned as a company and, as such, each worked on a number of different plays over the course of the week. The workshops were developmental rather than presentational and focused on probing the plays dramaturgically in considerable depth. The process gave the six playwrights the opportunity to hear their plays read and explored by an outstanding team of actors and directors. As the plays are all at different stages of development, the purpose of the workshops was to help the writers explore how their current drafts are functioning dramatically at this point in the process and to set specific objectives for the next draft of each piece.