Uversity is currently seeking applications from qualified, creative and innovative communications specialists to join its evolving team

COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS 8^th JULY 2015

Uversity is currently seeking applications from qualified, creative and innovative communications specialists to join its evolving team.  Reporting to Uversity’s Chief Executive Officer, the successful candidate will play a pivotal role in developing Uversity’s profile, its communities and future.

Background

Uversity is a Recognised College of the National University of Ireland, a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee.  Uversity recruits and admits international students for its flagship personalised programme, a Master of Arts in Creative Process.  Uversity puts students in control of their education within a learning framework that promotes individuality and creative difference.

Modules are offered in Art, Design, Drama, Dance, Music, Literature, Culture, Creative Writing, Creative Technologies and Cinema and Broadcast Arts. Each student is assigned a personal mentor, attends modules in host institutions on the island of Ireland, spends time engaged with practice and interacting with Ireland’s artistic and cultural community and completes a final project.  Further information is available at www.uversity.org.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

As Uversity is a new and emerging entity, the following duties and responsibilities are indicative and will evolve with Uversity

·      manage, evaluate and enhance Uversity’s day-to-day communication and student recruitment strategies

·      specify and project manage Uversity’s collateral, media relations and events

·      develop and maintain Uversity’s website and other digital / social media channels as interactive communication, recruitment, and thought-leadership channels

·      provide reports and updates on Uversity students and activities

·      cultivate and maintain relationships with key stakeholders (e.g. students, alumni, media, partner institutions, potential applicants, arts / cultural organisations)

·      develop and implement a contacts & document management and email communication system for Uversity

·      identify and maximise public and media relations and publicity opportunities

·      be Uversity’s Data Protection Officer

·      advise on and maintain Uversity’s network, software and hardware requirements

·      file and diary management

·      general office administration

·      other duties as assigned by the Chief Executive Officer.

Experience and Knowledge

·      Post-graduate qualification in a relevant discipline (communications, marketing / digital marketing, arts / cultural management, or other allied area) preferably to Master’s level

·      Minimum three years’ experience in a communications or marketing/digital role

·      Experience in project, event & budget management with a proven track record of delivering on objectives, time and budget

·      A proven track record in developing compellingly effective digital content, media and / or marketing campaigns

·      Experience in representing an organisation to the public, stakeholders and media

·      Knowledge and understanding of higher education and or cultural / arts organisations

Skills and Special Aptitudes

·      Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills

·      Ability to write good content and facilitate online conversations

·      Excellent technical skills and familiarity to use / maintain a full suite of digital / social media tools & channels including Wordpress CMS

·      Attention to detail and strong organisational skills

·      Ability to work calmly, innovatively and effectively under pressure and within a small dynamic team

·      Excellent interpersonal and networking skills

·      A demonstrable interest in creativity and the arts

Application Process

To apply, please send a cover letter outlining your interest and suitability for the role and a CV to cdube@uversity.org by Wednesday 8^th July 2015.  Interviews will take place between 13^th & 22^nd July 2015.

Irish Theatre Institute call to Irish Theatre Designers to attend PQ2015

ITI is issuing an open call for Travel Awards for theatre designers to visit and engage with PQ15 for c. three days/ nights between 18 – 28 June this year.

To qualify for one of these Arts Council Travel & Training Awards you must be a professional designer working in theatre/ dance/ opera in one of the following areas: set, lighting, sound, video, costume, prop, hair and make-up. You must be resident in Ireland or Northern Ireland. 

Use link below for more information

http://www.irishtheatreinstitute.com/

Irish Times Theatre Awards 2015 winners

Stagebrace.com congratulates all 2014/5 Irish Times Theatre Award winners but particularly: Best Set Design: Alyson Cummins,for Pentecost, Best Costume Design: Mike Britton for How Many Miles to Babylon, Best Lighting: Ciaran Bagnall for Pentecost

The Ballyturk Group at The Irish Times Theatre Awards: Clive Welsh, Teho Teardo, John Crumlish, Eamonn Fox, Sophie Flynn, Anne Clarke, Paul Fahy, Stephen Rea, Tom Rohan, Helen Atkinson, Jamie Vartan and Val Sherlock. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times

See the full story at:
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/stephen-rea-recognised-for-outstanding-contribution-1.2113145

2014 Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards: And the nominees are...

The nominations for this year’s The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards have been announced, which recognise the best performances and productions in Irish theatre in 2014.

Shortlists have been announced across 13 categories. Among the most nominated productions are: Landmark’s Ballyturk, by Enda Walsh; the Abbey Theatre’s Our Few and Evil Days, by Mark O’Rowe; and the Lyric Theatre’s Punk Rock, by Simon Stephens. Each has been nominated for six awards. Among the actors nominated are Cillian Murphy, Aoife Duffin, Marie Mullen, Ciaran Hinds and Aisling O’Sullivan.

The three judges for 2014 were: Gerry Smyth, poet and former managing editor of The Irish Times; novelist Liz Nugent; and actor Fergus Cronin. Between them they saw 138 productions in conventional theatres, site-specific locations, promenade performances and even floating venues throughout the country.

See Peter Crawley's article in the Irish Times Weekend Review section, Saturday 17th January 2015: Click on: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/backstage-at-the-irish-times-irish-theatre-awards-1.2068843

Culture shock: The best artistic stories that science has to tell by Gemma Tipton Irish Times 10th Jan 15

Thousands of years ago people made up stories to explain the world. Myths describing the changing seasons often became dogma, morphing into religion. Fact, theory and story slid around one another, shaping an idea of what the world was, how it worked and what the meaning of life was.

More recently science nudged those belief systems aside – unless you happen to be a creationist – and enjoyed a brief interlude when everything seemed measurable, discoverable and explainable.

But it isn’t. The paradox is that the more we can observe, the more we discover that the sums don’t add up. Concepts such as dark matter, which can’t be seen or measured, have to be added to calculations to make them work.

These days string theory and quantum physics seem to occupy a similar space to the old myths. It does appear, at least to the amateur, that these branches of science offer stories that make sense of what can be seen but not (yet) proved.

Some of these ideas are almost romantically delicious. Take entanglement. Once derided by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”, entanglement demonstrates how some particles are so deeply linked that observing one has an effect on the other, even though they may be separated widely. Imagine if that fact could form part of an explanation for some of our more inexplicable emotional reactions – including love.

On a perhaps more practical level, there’s the work of Benoit Mandelbrot, the Polish-born French mathematician who saw how fractal geometry creates the structure underpinning what may otherwise seem like chaos, and that even clouds and coastlines have an underlying degree of order. Arthur C Clarke, the science writer and author of2001: A Space Odyssey, described the pretty patterns of fractals, generated by the Mandelbrot set, as “one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of mathematics”.

With that, science and art, which in Leonardo da Vinci’s day were twin aspects of creative thinking, have come closer together again.   For more click on: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/culture-shock-the-best-artistic-stories-that-science-has-to-tell-1.2060226

Our Few and Evil Days at The Abbey Theatre, Dublin

On Wednesday 1st of October last I attended a very edgy, gripping performance of “Our Few and Evil Days” at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The production was written by Mark O’Rowe(Howie the Rookie). Directed by Mark O’ Rowe, Set Designed by Paul Wills, Costume Design by Catherine Fay, Lighting Design by Paul Keogan, Hair and Make-up Design Val Sherlock.

This edgy, unsettling drama is set in a realistic domestic setting as prescribed by the script. It is presented as a front to back longitudinal section through the ground floor of a two story house, located in an affluent Dublin suburb. The main performance areas are the down stage right lounge/sitting room area and the down stage left dining/kitchen area of this open plan dwelling. The glass panelled door in the upstage glass panelled wall of the lounge/sitting room shows and opens into the hall and stairwell of the ground floor. This allows for action on the stairs and in the hall way to be seen by the audience. Down stage of this glass panelled wall is a foldout sofa-bed flanked by side tables and two armchairs.

Stage left accommodates a fitted kitchen with an upstage door opening into a utility room and access to the back garden and garage. Down stage right accommodates a dining table and four chairs. The configuration of the set allows for uninterrupted, fluid movement of action around the performance areas. The set is contained by a continuous, full ceiling piece with nine down lighters over the sitting room area and a chandelier over the dining table. The kitchen units have their own under lighting.

The whole stage area has been brought forward of the proscenium into the auditorium and gives the impression of being extended into the wings. The effect is to bring audience and performers into close quarter contact into a shared (at times white knuckled) theatrical experience.

The set is painted in tones of malachite to moss/racing green with all the woodwork (skirtings’ architraves, doors, windows) in varnished wood. In the context of the play this is an interesting psychological choice of décor on a number of accounts. Green is associated as a being a calming colour, popular in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, etc. It is also associated with sports, Billiard/Snooker Tables, Table Tennis Tables, Racing Green, etc. It also has summer woodland or dark evergreen forest associations, depending on the dramatic mood of the moment as augmented by Paul Keogan’s able lighting. Set against or in this “changing green ambiance” the characters simmer in social discourse and eventually explode in fissions of secrets told, frustration, anger, recrimination ending in haunting fusion of reconciliation.

   

The performance opens quietly at dawn with a sleeping wife/mother on the sofa bed in the down stage lounge/sitting room with the hall way and stairs in the background. It closes quietly, dimly at night with the same woman gone to sleep, dreaming in her sofa bed.

The programme at €6.00 (£9.99 in UK) apart from a short piece on the Abbey and biographies on the cast and crew, it is the script for the play containing a setting description, prologue and script with the writers stage directions.

Programmes that provide useful content such as the Director’s view on the play and/or comments and sketches by the designers giving insight into some of the thought process behind the concept development are to be encouraged. Such input from the Director and the Designers is of immense value to students of Design for Stage and Screen, Performance, Design for Performance and when provided is to be welcomed.

Mark O’Rowe:         http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1248824/

Paul Wills:               http://www.paulwills.co.uk/

Catherine Fay:        http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3574279/

Paul Keogan:          http://www.paulkeogan.com/

Val Sherlock:           http://www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/person_detail/13620

http://www.irishplayography.com/person.aspx?personid=1495

                             

Abbey Theatre:       http://www.abbeytheatre.ie/

See also:                https://www.dublintheatrefestival.com/Online/

Spinning at The Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin

On Wednesday 1^st of October last I attended an edgy, gripping performance of “Spinning” at The Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. The production was written by Deirdre Kinahan (Halcyon Days). Directed by Jim Culleton, Set Designed by Sabine Dargent, Costume Design by Leonore McDonagh, Lighting Design by Kevin Smith, Hair and Make-up Design not credited

This edgy, unsettling drama is set on a symbolic, isolated, raised tidal island in a dark, spacious limbo observed by darkened audience from three sides. Anticipation stirs as the house lights darken and the characters brighten through the gloom, revealed on a raised, hard, weathered copper surface, the edges encrusted with exposed low-tide marine molluscs.

For more see: http://stagebrace.blogspot.ie/

Sabine Dargent presents the performance space as a two tiered low raised flat topped irregular shaped rostrums. They appear to be topped in sections of weathered copper or brass sheeting which gives a slightly reflective patina and muted hardness to the surface. The rostra facia is textured as low-tide exposed rock or harbour wall, encrusted with molluscs and fragments of marine detritus. The undercut facia is under-lit, which is used sparingly to dramatic effect. The rostrum levels a texturally welded to the level below by a rim of encrusted molluscs, grit and fragments of marine detritus. Has the tide has gone out for Conor?

The timely lit performance areas within the space and the smooth queuing of the performers bring the audience effortlessly from setting to setting and from time to time.

The centre stage performance space is anchored by a small round metal, glass topped table and two chairs with character. 

Overall presentation is visually pleasing and appropriate to the drama; the scenic elements are economically skeletal and effective. The backing of black drapes an partially lit back wall of the theatre gave a subdued starkness to the space. This assisted in confining the observer’s attention on the performers, an effect which was supported by Kevin Smith’s lighting.

Leonore McDonagh’s Costume Design was effective in giving the characters a credible appearance/sense of being in/from suburban Dublin, in/at a rural seaside small town. Self-employed/Working class, 17, 25 to 40 year olds in a confused contemporary society.

As the drama unfolds the encroaching mental and physical deterioration of Conor was convincingly supported by his unchanging attire, symbolising his inability to change. This in contrast to the costume changes reflecting the growing confidence and assertiveness of Conor’s estranged wife.

The Lighting Design was subtle and sensitive in conveying changes of location, time and bringing emphasis to dramatic moments.

Overall a contained, dramatically claustrophobic setting in which this edgy, unsettling drama unfolds.

The programme was good value at €5.00 apart from information on Fishamble, biographies on the cast and crew it contained the script with the writers stage directions.

Programmes that provide useful content such as the Director’s view on the play and/or comments and sketches by the designers giving insight into some of the thought process behind the concept development are to be encouraged. Such input from the Director and the Designers is of immense value to students of Design for Stage and Screen, Performance, Design for Performance and when provided is to be welcomed.

Jim Culleton:               http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2614266/

Sabine Dargent:          http://www.sabinedargent.com/

Leonore McDonagh:   http://www.irishplayography.com/person.aspx?personid=473

Kevin Smith:                http://www.kevinsmith.ie/

Fishamble:                  http://fishamble.com/

Smock alley:                http://smockalley.com/

See also:                     https://www.dublintheatrefestival.com/Online/Spinning