Skehana Summer School

John O'Hare is an actor, director and academic based in Sydney Australia.

Critical Voices will support the compiling of a report by John O' Hare, head of the Skehana Summer school, in the aftermath of the various workshops he will give in August 2003.

The report will be required by the summer school to ascertain the levels of interest and ability of potential professional actors and the differences between the amateur drama levels, the semi professional actors and also the young trainee actors from Youth Theatres and Drama school. Skehana in association with five other Arts Officers in Ireland is endeavouring to develop a week-long theatre Summer School (which will hopefully move from region to region) from 2004 onward.

The Summer School for 2003 takes place in five different regions over two days and is essentially a pilot and an experiment. Skehana will be the facilitator of an ongoing development based on the findings of John O' Hare at the end of the run of workshops. The ultimate questions of the report will be which categories Skehana should be facilitating in the Summer School and also what level of experience actors should have to gain admission to the school. The current state of acting experience and ability will also be questioned. Finally the overall relevance of a Summer School will be explored; this will be very important information for both the Arts Officers in question and Skehana.

The Arts Officers currently taking part in the pilot project are:
Marlyn Gaughan, Galway
Ian Mc Donagh, Cork
Somhairle MacConghaile, Monaghan
Melanie Scott, Tipperary
Catherine Kelly, Westmeath.