David Doyle-
Recently there seems to be little anyone talks about apart from elections, from provostial to student union to the general election. We’ve all become adept at avoiding the gaze of campaigners as they try to get you to read their manifestos and skilfully avoiding the menagerie of oversized animals that have taken up residence in the Arts Block but amid all of this, another election has taken place, that for the new chairman of DU Players.
The chairman of DU Players is a coveted position within college and one which has a huge impact of the cultural climate within Trinity. Served with the task of managing a society which has grown exponentially in recent years and which produces two shows a week as well as frequent festivals including the Fringe Festival and the Shakespeare Festival, chairman of Players is a position of huge responsibility and one which now belongs to junior sophister Drama and Theatre Studies student Marc Atkinson following the Players’ AGM on Wednesday.
Marc will be filling the role previously held by Matt Smyth, who has really helped the society to develop this year in what many consider to be one of its most successful years in recent memory. Matt has helped orchestrate several notable appearances from esteemed actors including Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw as well as being instrumental in organising the inaugural Oscar Wilde Festival which proved to be a huge success.
However Marc seems adequately equipped to step into the void left by Matt’s departure with both a vast array of experience and a raft of new ideas to constantly improve upon the society’s recent success which he has credited to the “sterling work” of the departing committee. Indeed society seems to be the operative word in some of Marc’s plans for the growth and development of Players with a vision of Players being seen as something more than just a theatre but rather a society which has something to offer everyone from directing to acting to technical work or simply coming to watch productions. This vision seems to build upon Matt Smyth’s efforts to help Players reach a wider audience this year, something which he has readily achieved.
Indeed it is this wider audience that Players now reaches that Atkinson hopes to exploit to help develop the society during his year at the helm by reaching out into the wider Dublin artistic community. With a vision of using previous Players members who now find themselves in positions within the Dublin theatre community to hold master-classes and workshops as well as to help directors on individual projects, he seeks to move beyond what has been traditionally done by the society in an effort to maintain and improve production values in the shows produced by the society.
However this reaching out to a wider community doesn’t simply involve improving production values, it is also about nurturing new writing talent within the society which has been shown to be in abundance this semester with several productions of original pieces. This desire to reach out to the wider community may also foster a sense of the society being something more than just a theatre with Atkinson hoping to gain monthly cheap or free tickets to some of the theatrical productions around Dublin.
However despite these lofty goals for continual improvement, Atkinson will still have to tackle the continued criticism that has been level against Players, that it is a clique. However he “doesn’t buy” this criticism and sees the society as a welcoming place. He does however aim to simplify the submissions process and in doing so make it easier for more people to get involved over the coming year.
There is no doubt that Atkinson has the potential to do great things for Players over the coming year having been involved since he was a Fresher and having sat on the 2008/2009 committee as production officer, he understands how Players functions and this will prove invaluable in the implementation of his proposals for the development of the society next year. However he isn’t content to just rest on the laurels of the society’s success this year and will “consider” running the hugely successful Oscar Wilde Festival next year, though will by no means do it purely based on its success this year and it is this drive to constantly reimagine, expand and develop Players the Marc Atkinson clearly has that is set to define his year as chairman.
