Staging Intercultural Ireland: New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives

The Celtic Tiger era witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of transnational migrants entering Ireland. By the 2011 Census, 17% of the population was born outside Ireland and much of what had been assumed about Irish identity (and theatre) could no longer hold. This groundbreaking anthology brings together six interviews and eight plays by migrant and Irish-born theatre artists who probe the impact of inward-migration and interculturalism in post-1990s Ireland. The interviews and plays collected here, all available in print for the first time, model a range of devising strategies, dramaturgical frameworks, and literary forms. To date, the work documented here has been produced at a wide range of venues from the Abbey Theatre and New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre to mid-sized theatre companies, community centres, street theatres, and even refugee accommodation centres throughout Ireland. This book represents established as well as emerging theatre artists and includes work by Donal O'Kelly, Bisi Adigun, Charlie O'Neill, Rosaleen McDonagh, Paul Meade, Nicola McCartney, Ursula Rani Sarma, and Mirjana Rendulic. Additionally, there are interviews with Bairbre Ni Chaoimh, Anna Wolf, Kasia Lech, John Currivan, Alicja Ayres, Jose Miguel Jimenez, Declan Gorman, Declan Mallon, and John Scott. Staging Intercultural Ireland offers a snapshot of Ireland’s long-term intercultural process in its early stages and contributes to transnational migration studies and intercultural theatre research in a global context.