After a highly acclaimed 18th Bloomsday, Joyce and the Nation, which featured a staged version of the Cyclops Chapter of Ulysses (An Irishman and a Jew go into a Pub...), Bloomsday enters its 19th year invigorated.
We have a greatly expanded committee, including long-time patrons who have stepped up to serve other patrons, Imelda Carthy and Adrian Beavis, a closet Joycean who has been secretly making Joyce his own for decades, James King, a multi-media-singer-songwriter-film-maker, Maireid Sullivan, who is enthusiastically revamping with Ben Kettlewell (her partner at Lyrebird Media) our very ancient website, and last but far from least, Bloomsday's ambassador to the world, prize-winning radio-documentary maker, Colm McNaughton. His account of 2011 Bloomsday went to air on the ABC recently, and you can listen on the Night Air (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nightair/stories/2011/3279246.htm). It's ten minutes in, and about 12 minutes long. It features fragments of the performance and foyer chat. It gives a great flavour of the event.
These new members join the existing committee (Bob Glass, Sian Cartwright, Roslyn Hames and myself). We also draw on the expertise of Melbourne poet Philip Harvey and foundation Bloomsdayer, Graeme Anderson whose background in review-style theatre has long been evident in our theatrical ventures. They are not formally committee members but they are very knowledgeable consultants to Bloomsday.
Brenda Addie again collaborates with the committee as the Theatre Director who has transformed our scripts into increasingly exciting theatre for 5 of the last 6 years.
We have some exciting plans for 2012, and some fresh new ways of getting there. Watch this space.
Yours in Joyce, Frances
