Artistic Director: Jimmy Fay

Producer: Colin Baird

Bedrock “…a theatrical force unwilling to compromise with anything less than excellence.” - Rachel Andrews, Sunday Tribune.

 

History

Bedrock was founded in 1993, with the intention to produce major work that came from outside the conventional Irish dramatic canon. So far, we have staged productions by Caryl Churchill, Brad Fraser, Sarah Kane, Heiner Müller, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Bertolt Brecht, Steven Berkoff and Wajdi Mouawad.

We have also commissioned new writing by some of Ireland’s most inventive new writers, including Alex Johnston, Mark O’Rowe, Ken Harmon, Des Bishop and Arthur Riordan. We remain committed to finding new theatrical forms to reflect the changing realities of contemporary life. The company tours both nationally and internationally.

In 1995 Bedrock created and administered the first Dublin Fringe Festival, which we ran again the following year. Then we handed it over to professionals because it was threatening to become a full-time job.

 

Jimmy Fay – Director

Jimmy has directed most of Bedrock’s productions since 1993. These include East (Berkoff), Saved (Bond), Unidentified Human Remains & The True Nature of Love (Fraser), The Striker (Churchill), Early Morning (Bond), Quartet (Muller), Deep Space (Johnson), Quay West & Night Just Before The Forest (Koltes), Wideboy Gospel (Harmon), Blasted (Kane), Faraway (Churchill), Urban Ghosts (Johnson/Handke), Shooting Gallery (Riordan/Bishop), What Where (Beckett), This Is Not A Play (Johnston), and most recently Roberto Zucco (Koltes) and This Is Our Youth (Lonergan). He was the first director of the Dublin Fringe Festival (1995&1996) which he co-founded with Bedrock Productions.

 

Jimmy spent a year as Acting Literary Director of the Abbey Theatre during 2007 and 2008. His productions at the Abbey Theatre include The Playboy of the Western World in a new version by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, Saved by Edward Bond for which he won Best Director Irish Times Theatre Award 2007, The School of Scandal by RB Sheridan, True West by Sam Shepard, Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds and Melonfarmer by Alex Johnston.

 

Other productions include Hoors by Gregory Burke (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Last Days of the Celtic Tiger by Paul Howard  (Landmark Productions), a Romanian version of Malachy McKenna’s Tillsonburg at Arad State Theatre, Transylvania and Sibiu Festival, Romania, Blown by Nicholas Field (Theatre Royal Plymouth) The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco adapted by Owen McCafferty (Tinderbox), True West (Lyric Theatre Belfast), Rap Éire by Arthur Riordan and Des Bishop and Comedians by Trevor Griffiths (Bickerstaffe).

 

Colin Baird - Producer

Colin graduated in Performing Arts. His professional career has centred around international theatre programming and producing. He has worked at London’s “Art Powerhouse” as part of the team who brought BITE (Barbican International Theatre Event) and  the UK’s premier dance-house, Sadler’s Wells, where he worked in programming their West End venue, the Peacock Theatre. He moved to Dublin in 2002 and became Producer for City Theatre Dublin/The Machine Theatre Company where he produced Raymond Briggs’ classic The Snowman and John B Keane’s The Matchmaker which he successfully toured around the UK and Ireland. Other producing credits in Ireland include Apollo and Hyacinthus (Opera Theatre Company), The Secret Garden (Landmark & The Helix), Underneath the Lintel (Landmark), Sleeping Beauty (Landmark & The Helix).

 

In 2007 Colin produced the Glasgow Merchant City Festival, a multi faceted event serving to showcase the vibrancy of Scotland’s most exciting cultural quarter. He also produced La Banda Europa’s Before the Wolf, a musical collaboration between thirty-five musicians from across Europe who play traditional indigenous instruments. Added to that were over sixy local community participants. Together they created a ‘Sound of Europe’.

 

For Bedrock Productions, Colin had produced Wedding Day at the Cro Magnons’, You Are Here, This Is Our Youth and Bedrock’s Garage.