WELCOME TO THE 2008 SYNGE SUMMER SCHOOL

29 JUNE - 5 JULY 2008

Biographical Notes

Bisi Adigun is originally from the Yoruba nation of the western part of Nigeria. He moved to England in 1993 where he lived and worked as a performing artist for three years before relocating to Ireland in 1996. He has since worked as a musician, a storyteller, a theatre practitioner and an academic and was, for the first three series, a co–presenter of Mono, RTE’s flagship intercultural television programme. He holds a B.A in Dramatic Arts (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria; 1990), M.A in Drama Studies (UCD; 1998), M.A in Film/Television (DCU; 2002) and currently on the doctoral programme in Drama Studies in Trinity College Dublin. He is the artistic director of Arambe Productions, Ireland’s first African theatre company, which he founded in 2003. For more on his company visit: www.arambeproductions.com. He recently co-authored a new version of The Playboy of the Western World with Roddy Doyle, which was performed in 2007 at the Abbey Theatre as part of the 50 th Dublin Theatre Festival.

Sebastian Barry is a major, internationally-renowned playwright and novelist. His plays include The Steward of Christendom, Our Lady of Sligo, Prayers of Sherkin, Hinterland and The Pride of Parnell Street. His awards include the BBC/Stewart Parker Trust Award, the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Ireland/America Literary Prize, the Critics' Circle Award for Best New Play, the Writers' Guild Award, the Lloyds Private Banking Playwright of the Year Award and the Peggy Ramsay Play Award, as well as nominations for the Olivier Award for The Steward of Christendom and the Man Booker Prize for his novel A Long Long Way, which was also the 2007 “One City, One Book” choice for Dublin. His latest novel, The Secret Scripture, will be published by Faber on 30 June 2008.

Ros Dixon is Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies in the English Department at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Having written her doctorate on the work of the Soviet theatre director Anatolii Efros, she has written several articles on varied aspects of Russian theatre history. She is currently engaged in research on productions of Russian plays in Ireland and Irish plays in Russia, a study that concerns issues of translation, adaptation, and cross-cultural exchange.

Nicholas Grene is Professor of English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin. He was the first Director of the Synge Summer School. His publications include The Politics of Irish Drama (1999), Interpreting Synge: Essays from the Synge Summer School (2000) and Irish Theatre on Tour, edited with Chris Morash (2005).

John P. Harrington is Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. He was educated at Columbia University, University College, Dublin, and he earned his Ph.D. in literature from Rutgers University. He has written extensively on Irish literature and culture, including the books The English Traveller in Ireland (1990); The Irish Beckett (1991); and The Irish Play on the New York Stage (1997).  He edited W. W. Norton's anthology Modern Irish Drama (1991) and a new edition of it, Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama, to be released in 2008.  He has co-edited with the sociologist Elizabeth Mitchell a collection of interdisciplinary essays published as Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland (1999).  His new work includes a book, The Life of the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street and an edited collections of the work of others, The Future of Irish Studies and Irish Theater in America.  While continuing to teach and attend academic conferences, he also lectures frequently on theater and Irish culture in non-academic settings such as the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center Festival, New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and others.

Patrick Lonergan teaches drama at National University of Ireland, Galway. He writes about Irish theatre for The Irish Times and Irish Theatre Magazine, and is an executive member of IASIL (the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures), the Irish Society for Theatre Research, and the Irish Theatrical Diaspora Project. Recent and forthcoming books include: Echoes Down the Corridor – Irish Theatre: Past, Present and Future (with Riana O’Dwyer); The Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays; A History of the Dublin Theatre Festival (with Nicholas Grene, to be published in October 2008); and Theatre and Globalization (to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in January 2009).

Mark Phelan teaches drama at Queen’s University, Belfast. His research focuses on Irish Theatre, specializing in theatre and performance in the North of Ireland. He has published a number of articles on Irish theatre and photography and is currently working on two book projects: a collection of essays on Stewart Parker and a monograph on the Northern Revival and the Ulster Literary Theatre.

Ondřej Pilný is Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at Charles University, Prague. He is the author of Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama (2006) and e ditor of John Millington Synge, Dramata a próza, an annotated volume of J.M. Synge’s works in Czech translation (2006). Other recent publications include Global Ireland: Irish Literatures in the New Millennium (ed. with Clare Wallace), Time Refigured: Myths, Foundation Texts and Imagined Communities (ed. with Martin Procházka), and a journal issue on ‘Samuel Beckett: Textual Genesis and Reception’ (Litteraria Pragensia 17.33, July 2007). His translations include plays by J.M. Synge, Brian Friel, and Martin McDonagh, and Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman.

Emilie Pine lectures in Modern Drama at University College Dublin and is currently writing a book on Irish theatre and cultural memory. She has published widely on Irish theatre and film

Shaun Richards is Professor of Irish Studies at Staffordshire University, UK. His publications, from Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture (MUP, 1988), which he co-authored with David Cairns, to the Cambridge Companion to Twentieth Century Irish Drama (CUP 2004), have focused on Irish Drama, particularly with regard to its cultural politics. In addition to publishing on Irish Literature in major journals and edited collections (including the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to J.M. Synge) he has been actively involved in the development and dissemination of Irish Studies within the UK and internationally: he is currently Chair of the British Association for Irish Studies; he is one of three elected representatives for Europe on the executive of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures; and a member of the editorial board of Irish Studies Review.

Melissa Sihra is Lecturer in Drama at Trinity College Dublin and specialises in Irish theatre. She is convenor of the MPhil in Theatre and Performance at Trinity and will teach Playwriting with Marina Carr in Autumn 2008. She is currently completing a monograph on the theatre of Carr and recently edited Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). She is on the Executive Committee of the Irish Society for Theatre Research and Board Member of Corn Exchange Theatre Company.