Drama the winner as Druid and NUIG forge new links
Date Published: {J}
It’s such a good idea that you’d wonder why it took nearly 35 years for Druid and NUIG to enter a formal partnership that will see the two organisations share their experience and resources over the next three years.
But that’s what happened on Monday when details of the new joint initiative were announced. It will see NUIG contribute to the development of Druid’s next major theatre event, to be produced in 2012/13. In return Druid will develop a range of workshops and seminars, including a series of Masterclasses for the university’s BA and MA students.
There have been informal links between the two organisations for years, but this project brings their relationship to a new level.Maybe the reason it took so long is because when they set up the company in the 1970s, Druid founders, Garry Hynes, Marie Mullen and the late Mick Lally – all graduates of the then UCG – “worked hard not to acknowledge” the connection with the university, as they didn’t want Druid to be just known as “that bunch of students from UCG”, according to Garry.
Despite that, Druid’s artistic director acknowledged on Monday, at the launch of the three-year academic partnership between the theatre and university, that “without UCG, Druid wouldn’t exist”.
She explained that her time at university allowed her to do something she had never previously dreamed of doing, which was to direct and make theatre, and it allowed Marie to act. Druid’s other founder, Mick Lally, also a graduate of the college, did have connections in Galway’s theatre world apart from university, she explained. Now the time had come for Druid to help today’s students.
“At a time when we appear to have squandered the economic wealth of our country, and I’m not just blaming politicians here – we voted them in – it’s good to be part of a drive to pass on skills to a new generation of theatre makers.”
If nothing else, the three-year project would help pass on the enthusiasm and feeling of the brave new world that Druid felt in the early days, she added.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.