Hit Festival show scoops top award at annual celebration of Irish theatre.
Best Production: Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival’s Ballyturk
Best Sound Design: Teho Teardo and Helen Atkinson Ballyturk
Ballyturk’s Stephen Rea receives Special Tribute Award
Ballyturk was the big winner last Sunday night at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards winning the most coveted award of the night Best Production. The entire Ballyturk team went on stage to accept the award with warm accolades being paid by the Festival and Landmark to playwright and director Enda Walsh, the cast, crew and creative team in addition to audiences and funders.
One of the most talked about Irish productions of recent years Ballyturk was written and directed by Enda Walsh, starring Cillian Murphy, Mikel Murfi and Stephen Rea, and premiered during Galway International Arts Festival in July last year prior to a sell-out tour to Dublin, Cork and the prestigious National Theatre of Great Britain in London.
Ballyturk also won Best Sound Design for Teho Teardo and Helen Atkinson who had travelled from Rome and London respectively to be at the Award Ceremony. Actor Stephen Rea was also honoured with a Special Tribute Award for his contributions to Irish Theatre which was presented by his long time friend and collaborator, actor Sinéad Cusack.
During his acceptance speech Stephen Rea commented on the wonderful time he had working on Ballyturk heaping praise on the playwright, cast and production team. One of the highlights of the Awards Ceremony was a hilarious video tribute to Rea made by Enda Walsh and Cillian Murphy.
Speaking before the award ceremony, Rea who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the 1992 film The Crying Game “You kind of scroll back through your life and wonder what you’ve done that allows them to, without embarrassment, offer you this thing. Really, it all comes down to [the writers]. I sort of feel it has nothing to do with me,” said Rea, who flew to Lithuania this week to film scenes for the BBC’s War and Peace.
The Awards Ceremony took place at Dublin’s National Concert Hall and was attended by an 800-strong crowd, with many well-known names from Irish theatre.
The Ballyturk company was represented by actors Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea, Paul Fahy and John Crumlish of Galway International Arts Festival, Anne Clarke of Landmark Productions, set designer Jamie Vartan, sound designers and composers Helen Atkinson and Teho Teardo, production manager Eamonn Fox and the extended creative and production team. Enda Walsh was unable to attend due to rehearsal commitments of his new show The Twits in London’s Royal Court while Mikel Murfi was in New York where his play The Man in the Woman’s Shoes opens this week.
Other well-known faces from stage and screen included Marie Mullen, Ciarán Hinds, Mark O’Rowe, Sean McGinley, Aisling O’Sullivan and Denis Conway were also in attendance.
