Belfast-based Tinderbox Theatre Company is to become Associate Theatre Company with the city’s The Mac arts centre.
The association will begin in April and sees Tinderbox departing the Crescent Arts Centre after eight years as its resident company.
The first fruits of the new relationship will be an adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and the première of The Upside-Down House by Tinderbox’s Creative Producer, Ciaran Haggerty. Described as “an evocative new play about first love and memory”, it will be seen during the Belfast International Arts Festival in the autumn.
The move is a boost for The Mac as it seeks to re-position itself after a period of unsettling high-level managerial change with the aim of becoming “a creative hub for artists”.
In a statement, the venue said, “we’re really looking forward to exploring bold new possibilities through our new association with Tinderbox… as a contemporary arts centre, it makes sense to partner with such a forward-thinking company”.
It added, “by sharing our varied knowledge, skills and facilities, we hope not only to spark ideas from each other but also to find new ways to lift and support our artists and creative community. Through pushing boundaries and a shared passion for theatre, exciting times lie ahead”.
Founded in 1988 as a company focusing on new writing, under director Patrick J O’Reilly’s stewardship since 2016, Tinderbox has acquired a more pronounced, European-accented approach to staging new and classic texts.
Among the company’s recent offerings were stagings of Lorca’s Yerma and the UK Theatre Award-winning revival of Ionesco’s Rhino.
Appropriately enough, O’Reilly wrote and directed the last production, The Weein, in The Mac’s predecessor, the Old Museum Arts Centre, before it relocated to its new £18 million home with two theatre spaces with combined seating of 470 in the city’s Cathedral Quarter in 2012.