About Us
The Gaiety School of Acting, The National Theatre School of Ireland, was founded in 1986 by the internationally renowned theatre director Joe Dowling, in response to the lack of full time actor training programmes in Ireland at that time. The school is now widely regarded as the country’s premier training facility for actors.
Our policy is to train actors for theatre, film and television. The school offers a two-year intensive acting programme and an extensive selection of part-time and tailored courses for more than 2000 adults, teenagers, children and overseas students.
Our Chairman: Joe Dowling
Joe Dowling is widely known for his association with the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's main national theatre. He founded The Young Abbey, became the artistic director of the Peacock Theatre, and directed the Abbey from 1978 to 1985, being his tenure particularly remembered for the encouragement and development of new plays and young playwrights.
After leaving the Abbey, Mr. Dowling became managing and artistic director of Dublin's oldest commercial theatre, The Gaiety, where he founded and directed The Gaiety School of Acting. Since 1990 he has directed extensively in North America, where he has been appointed artistic director of the Guthrie Theatre since 1995. He is also a member of the artistic directorate of the Globe Theatre in London.
Our Director: Patrick Sutton
Patrick Sutton is Director of Ireland’s premier drama school, The Gaiety School of Acting-The National Theatre School of Ireland. The school was founded by Joe Dowling in 1986. Joe, a former artistic director of The Abbey Theatre, Dublin is currently Director of The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and acts as Chairman of the school.
Trained at Dartington College of Arts, England, Patrick graduated in 1980 with an honours theatre degree. He has recently received his MA in Screenwriting from IADT. He has worked extensively as an actor in Ireland, England and France. Patrick is a former Director of Plymouth Action Community Theatre, The National Festival of Youth Theatres, Ireland, Wexford Arts Centre, and Artistic Director of TEAM Theatre Company.
In Wexford, Patrick developed a wide range of significant arts initiatives, most notably bringing the work of playwright Billy Roche to national attention. Patrick has directed the first plays of a wide range of writers including Nell McCafferty (Sheep, Shite and Desolation for Passion Machine’s Songs of the Reaper Festival), and Ferdia McAnna (Big Mom for The Project Arts Centre). At TEAM Theatre company he commissioned directed and toured new work nationally. Patrick continues to direct theatre on a freelance basis as well as regularly directing the plays he has commissioned at The Gaiety School of Acting for the graduating classes in Dublin’s Project Arts Centre.
Writers the school is proud to have commissioned include Marina Carr, Gavin Kostick, Alex Johnston, Ken Bourke, Sean McLaughlin, Mary Elizabeth Burke Kennedy, Lisa Harding, Roger Gregg, Michele Reid, Lally Katz, Lisa Tierney Keogh and Johanna Anderson. In 2006 Patrick was proud to direct Ronnie Drew of The Dubliners in a one-man show with music about Ireland and some of its great writers. In 1994, Patrick was chairman of the visual arts committee of the internationally acclaimed Beckett Festival produced by Dublin’s Gate Theatre.
At The Gaiety School of Acting since 1994 Patrick has, with GSA founder, Joe Dowling and a committed and dedicated staff developed and expanded the school to its current position where over 2000 students are involved in a wide range of courses ranging from our intensive two year full time actor training programme to a range of courses available to students from overseas. These include The Original Theatre Project, our one-month Irish Theatre Summer School and our three-week January or May Irish Theatre programmes. Patrick regularly teaches in USA and has taught at NYU, Julliard and at a range of other drama programmes across USA.
The full time actor-training programme boasts unprecedented graduate success with our actors appearing in all of Ireland’s theatres, in film and television nationally and internationally and in theatres across England including The Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre in London.
The school is based in the centre of Dublin city’s cultural quarter, Temple Bar. Our range of part time courses take place at other centres around the country.
Patrick is currently involved in a series of strategic developments. These include developing a three year acting degree and re instating on the site of one of Dublin city’s finest theatre of 1662, Smock Alley Theatre, a state of the art series of performance spaces as a resource for Dublin, Ireland and the world. The Irish Prime Minister (An Taoiseach) symbolically ‘broke ground’ on the new development as a part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the school. The fundraising campaign to reinstate Smock Alley has made significant progress. Planning permission has been granted, the required archaeological survey has been completed and the range of significant archaeological artefacts have been catalogued.
Patrick is the director of COMMUNICATE, a communications company working at a senior level in politics, industry and the arts.
He was a government appointee to the board of The Irish Arts Council where he acted as chairman of the grants and business and finance subcommittees (1997-2005) From 2005-2009 he served on the board of Culture Ireland, the International Irish arts promotion agency. Patrick is a former Government appointee to the board of The Irish Museum of Modern Art. He is a former board member of Storytellers Theatre Company and The Project Arts Centre. He is currently a board member of The Lisa Richards Actors agency, The Arts for Peace Foundation, The Gaiety School of Acting and Smock Alley Theatre. Most recently he has been appointed to the Governing Authority of The Dublin Institute of Technology.
As a writer (Tony Barrow), he had his first two plays, ISCARIOT AND MAGDALEN presented at The Dublin International Fringe Festival with the former also playing in Boston, Washington DC and Atlanta in USA. In 2008, both ISCARIOT and MAGDALEN played at The International Festival of one-man plays in Chisinau, Moldova, and Eastern Europe. In August 2006 the first play in his BUTTE TRILOGY, ANACONDA ASHES, (a play about two brothers copper mining in Butte Montana in 1897,) was given a staged reading in both Missoula at The Colony writers festival and at The An Ri Ra Festival in Butte Montana. In 2007 the second play in THE BUTTE TRILOGY, THE BUTTE BULLET, (A play about boxing in 1944) was given a staged reading at An Ri Ra Festival in Butte and at the same festival in 2008, OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES, (Set in Butte in 1999) the third part of THE BUTTE TRILOGY was given a staged reading. In 2009 all three plays were given staged readings at The Colony and in The Mother Loade Theatre in Butte. It is proposed that all three plays in THE BUTTE TRILOGY will receive professional productions in Butte, throughout Montana and further afield in 2011/2012.
Patrick continues to lead an extraordinarily committed team at The Gaiety School of Acting. Both acting and administrative staff lead the way by offering a quality of service that is second to none.
Nationally and Internationally The Gaiety School of Acting is proud to be The National Theatre School of Ireland.
Facilities
The school is based in the centre of Dublin city's cultural quarter, Temple Bar, on Sycamore Street. The main studio spaces are located on the first and second floors. The facilities include changing rooms, common area and showers. There is a studio available for hire to outside groups from Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm. The space would be suitable for any type of classes, meetings or lectures and may be rented on a long-term basis.
For information about rates and availability, or to arrange a viewing, please contact us on 01 6799277, or email info@gaietyschool.com
To see some images of the school’s architecture, visit this link
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