Queen’s University Belfast is to host Front & Centre, a three-day symposium that will celebrate, showcase and explore the contribution of female, non-binary and queer writers to Northern Ireland’s theatre.
It also aims to address critical concerns about gender inequality in the theatre sector and will draw on seminal research by actress Maggie Cronin into the lack of representation on the region’s stages. Taking a broader, all-island view, it will also explore what progress has been made since the Waking The Feminists campaign launched a decade ago in response to the lack of diversity and representation in theatre in the Republic of Ireland.
In a statement, organisers said, “Northern Irish women deserve to see authentic representations of themselves. They deserve to have their stories told by people with lived experience. These plays and their writers need support from venues and companies, and need platforms to have their voices heard. Front & Centre asks why isn’t this happening? And what can we do to change it?”
The event will include keynote presentations, panel discussions and workshops alongside productions, readings and screenings of plays.
Participants include artists, academics, researchers and policy-makers, among them Maggie Cronin, leading Waking The Feminists figures Sarah Durcan and Ciara Murphy, playwright Fionnuala Kennedy and Drama and Dance Development Officer with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Caoileann Curry-Thompson.
Productions will include Aoibh Johnson’s The Daughters of Róisín and Caitlin Magnall-Kearns’s Trifled, with readings of work by Caoimhe Farren, Carley Magee and Anna Teresa McGrath.
Two screenings–of Amanda Verlaque’s Distortion and Clare Dwyer Hogg’s Stay Alive–will also be shown.
Front & Centre will run from May 23-25 at Queen’s University Belfast’s Brian Friel Theatre.