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This book is an insight into Ireland´s only arthouse theatre from the people who were there. Through interviews, articles, short memoirs and photographs, the book tracks the theatre from its inception, detailing the period under its founder Deirdre O´Connell and then the period following Joe Devlin´s arrival as its new artistic director.

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Stanislavski in Ireland: Focus at Fifty is an insight into Ireland´s only arthouse theatre from the people who were there. Through interviews, articles, short memoirs and photographs, the book tracks the theatre from its inception, detailing the period under its founder Deirdre O´Connell and then the period following Joe Devlin´s arrival as its new artistic director. Many of Ireland´s leading theatre and film artists trained and worked at Focus, including Gabriel Byrne, Joan Bergin, Olwen Fouéré, Brendan Coyle, Rebecca Schull, Johnny Murphy, Sean Campion, Tom Hickey, and Mary Elizabeth and Declan Burke-Kennedy. The book comes complete with a chronological list of Productions. It is aimed at students of theatre, actors, directors, academics, as well as the casual reader.

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CONTENTS: Brian McAvera/Steven Dedalus Burch: An Introduction in Search of an Audience - Mary Moynihan: Loving the Art in Yourself: a short history of the Focus Theatre - Joe Devlin: The Journey to Stanislavski and Beyond - Steven Dedalus Burch: Lineage: Acting and the Theatre - Mary Moynihan: An Interview with Margaret Toomey - Elizabeth Moynihan: Focus at Fifty - Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy: The Tern: a Memoir - Jimmy Murphy: The Hen-Night Epiphany - Brian McAvera: A (partial) Return to the Irish Fold - Steven Dedalus Burch: Writing as Politics, Politics as Writing: an interview with Brian McAvera - Steven Dedalus Burch: Focus is the Voice of its People - Tim McDonnell/Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy/Ena May/Elizabeth Moynihan: Auditions - Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy: Focus vs. Dublin Theatre establishment - Mary Moynihan/Tim McDonnell/Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy/Sabina Coyne Higgins: Stanislavski Training - Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy/Cathal Quinn: Directing - Sabina Coyne Higgins: Business - Tim McDonnell/ Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy/Sabina Coyne Higgins/Cathal Quinn: Productions - Mary Moynihan/Sabina Coyne Higgins/Tim McDonnell/ Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy/Ena May/Geraldine Cusack/Elizabeth Moynihan: Memories of Deirdre - Elizabeth Moynihan/Joe Devlin: Transition from Deirdre to Joe - Elizabeth Moynihan/Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy: The Joe Devlin Years - Kevin O´Brien: Focus Theatre and Deirdre O´Connell - Ronan O´Leary: Deirdre on Film: Reflections In A Golden Eye - Joe Devlin: The Last Night Speech at the Focus.

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"What I recall from the opening night of Focus productions is a powerful sense, not only of a period and place, but of a set of lives, relationships, conflicts and dramas having been created on stage. The fact that what happened on stage was based on technique lifted the achievement of The Focus Theatre and the contributions of Deirdre O´Connell beyond any individual or occasional brilliance. A new approach to theatre was being launched. A theory and practice based on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski was being made available to Irish theatre." (Michael D. Higgins, 2001).

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