In on the act
Having started out with only ten students in 1986, the Gaiety School of Acting now has an impressive alumni and caters for thousands of students a year
T he Gaiety School of Acting is very proud of its alumni – and so it should be. With its wall of fame getting a little more packed every year, it counts Colin Farrell, Olivia Wilde, Colin O’Donoghue and Aidan Turner (rumoured to be in the running for the next Bond role) among its past pupils.
Founded in 1986 by renowned theatre director Joe Dowling, the non-profit National Theatre School of Ireland last year celebrated three decades of training actors for theatre, film and TV. With just 10 students in its first year of operation, it now has closer to 5,000 each year.
The school offers classes for adults and children, as well as full-time, parttime and short courses across its three venues: Temple Bar and Malahide in Dublin and Bray, Co Wicklow.
The mainstay is its intensive two-year full-time actor training programme but there is a plethora of others, including courses for students from overseas. Examples of these include the Original Theatre Project, the one-month Irish Theatre Summer School and the threeweek January or May Irish Theatre programmes.
The school also runs a Junior Cert Shakespeare cycle, touring nationally and catering to almost 10,000 students.
There is no state funding for the Gaiety School, and general manager Maeve Whelan says its success is testament to the hard work and passion of the staff for what they do.
“We are very committed to enhancing creativity and confidence and showing people the amount of progress that can be made through the arts,” she says. “Students come in shy, and leave different people in terms of their level of confidence.”
The main school in Temple Bar has a full working theatre, three studios and lots of rehearsal spaces. “There’s very much a family feel here,” says Whelan.
The school is affiliated with Smock Alley Theatre, and while it employs 11 as part of its administration team, it has up to about 35 part-time tutors contracted to lead its various courses and initiatives.
Looking back, Whelan says the recession years were difficult but that, overall, Irish people’s love of and interest in the arts has never waned.
“The demand is always there. Ireland is a country of storytellers, and we are lucky that the Irish people see the value of the arts. Even though what we do might seem like a luxury product, it’s not.”
And although there are other acting schools out there, none carry quite the same weight.
“There’s no one who can do what we do,” says Whelan. “We have the experience, and we have the strength of our alumni behind us. We also pride ourselves on giving reality checks to everyone who wants to be a full-time actor so that they know exactly what they need to forge a career. Then we have contacts in the industry; Liam Neeson is a patron of ours, for example.”
In terms of future goals, Whelan would love nothing more than to set up satellite schools around the country, and she would also like to increase the school’s international activity.
“The demand is always there. Ireland is a country of storytellers, and we are lucky that the Irish people see the value of the arts.”