29 Apr 2010
The Gay Theatre Festival Battle Begins
This morning as I was listening to Ryan
Tubridy – well, Katherine Thomas standing in far less annoyingly than Lucy
Kennedy – at the 9.30 break there was an ad for The International Dublin Gay
Theatre Festival. It all sounded very fabulous, particularly with the RTE
Supporting The Arts stamp of approval.
Then, on arriving into work, I saw Fiona McCann’s
article in the Irish Times, which opens with the mention of the gay theatre
festival split, but then goes on to talk exclusively to and about the Absolut Dublin Gay Theatre Festival.
The battle has truly begun, with ‘the
establishment’ – eg. RTE and The Irish Times, – drawing lines. Both festivals
need bums on seats to boost their bottom lines, but the problem is that many
people, even within the gay community, are confused about which is which. Hell,
even I’m confused, and I know more about the split than most.
It’s interesting to watch it play out,
although I wish it wasn’t playing out at all, and that there was no more drama
in the staging of gay dramatics in Dublin.
However, I can’t see a time when the two sides
come together again, and the men behind both are fighting tooth and nail for the lives of
their festivals, so unless one of the shows dies a financial death, we’ll be having
two theatre festivals for the foreseeable future.
An idea might be to stage them at different
times, to maximise the potential, but with the gay calendar becoming ever more
packed with events, from GAZE to the GALAS, Pride festivals across Ireland to
the Milk Festival in August, space is at a premium. We might just have two more
festivals running at the same time next year.
It's all so 'Galway', if you catch my drift. (One wonders what the story is in the West this year?)