Current GMIT President, Joe O’Connor was elected President of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) for 2013/2014 at USI Congress last week.
O’Connor served as President of GMIT Students’ Union for two years, and was previously Vice President for Welfare, proving that he has no shortage of experience for the position of USI President.
The GMIT SU President was the sole candidate for the position of USI President.
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Text of the inroductory address delivered by Ms Finola Cronin on 15 June 2013, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa on Patrick Mason
Patrick Mason is a gargantuan of Irish theatre who has brought to the stage many of the most important plays of the Irish, European and American canons in landmark, memorable and definitive productions.
The sheer scale and breath of his achievement is extraordinary and remarkable; producing over 150 new Irish plays his award-winning work includes premier productions of among the most important texts from Ireland’s leading playwrights including Tom Murphy’s The Gigli Concert; Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa; Frank McGuinness’ Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme; and Marina Carr’s By The Bog of Cats. He has worked as choreographer, voice coach, and opera director, written drama for radio, and adapted plays for the stage. He has directed new plays by Stewart Parker, Hugh Leonard, Seamus Heaney, and Sebastian Barry, and is known for his accomplished revivals which reveal his deep understanding of theatre history and stagecraft.
For Dancing at Lughnasa he was awarded a Tony for Best Theatre Direction and a Drama Desk for Outstanding Direction of a Play; he received a Harvey’s Award for Thomas Kilroy’s Talbot’s Box and an Irish Times Special Theatre Award for his work as Artistic Director at The Abbey Theatre.
Mason is possibly the most important artistic import that Ireland has ever had the pleasure to offer citizenship; born to an Irish mother and English father, he was educated in England and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He first came to Dublin to assist Hugh Hunt in his production of The Silver Tassie for the Abbey Theatre – Mason would return to O’Casey’s masterpiece, in courageous and acclaimed theatre and opera productions, and, as significantly he was to return, after a sojourn lecturing in Performance Studies at Manchester University, to the Abbey Theatre – his Alma Mater.
Mason claims the Abbey theatre defines his work because it is a ‘writer’s theatre’ and his quest to reveal a rich text for what it – ‘a deeply human thing – emotional and intellectual’ – found form brilliantly in his now legendary collaborations with playwright and poet Tom MacIntyre, actor Tom Hickey, and designer Bronwen Casson.
MacIntyre’s adaption of Patrick Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger in particular was a ground-breaking performance of radical imagistic innovation – it was a call to ‘the psyche and the senses’ and invigorated Irish theatre.
Moreover this work, which toured to critical acclaim nationally and internationally was one that linked the national theatre directly back to its founder, to Yeats’ experimental dance plays, to the power and potency of pure theatrical gesture.
Yeats is for Mason, the constant conscience of the Abbey and his tenure as Artistic Director of the National Theatre Society from 1994-99 resounded with Yeats’ call for ‘art and intellect to integrate with the political and the social’. Putting The Abbey at the centre of public debate, Mason questioned adroitly artistic policies of the time that sought to undermine the institution’s position as the ‘locus of dramatic dialogue between the Irish people and their writers’, and the theatre’s purpose ‘to speak the deeper thoughts and emotions of Ireland’.
Mason’s artistic directorship secured ultimately not only the financial future of the national stage but reinforced its powerful voice – and its relevancy – most notably when – in 1994 in response to the IRA ceasefire, Mason seized the moment with a new production of McGuinness’ masterpiece Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme. When the UVF called a ceasefire that happened to coincide with the production run – there occurred a powerful chiming of politics, history and art.
A distinction of Mason’s programming as Artistic Director was the inclusion of world theatre alongside Irish repertoire and while his brilliant and daring production of Tony Kushner’s Angels In America demonstrated both his innate artistic and moral courage, productions such as Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Character’s in Search of an Author affirmed Mason’s belief that most especially in a national theatre, art has no national borders.
Mason’s work has been acclaimed on the international stage: in London, Edinburgh, New York, and on mainland Europe in The Netherlands, Denmark, Russia and farther afield in Australia and the Far East. His fascination with and love of music, evident in productions such as Friel’s Performances is given full rein in his in opera where his directing credits include, among others, Janacek, Verdi, Mozart, and Lortzing in productions for the English National Opera, Buxton Festival, Opera Zuid, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, and Wexford International Festival.
As much as Mason has been associated with The Abbey Theatre his work more latterly for The Gate Theatre Dublin animates and re-imagines classic productions for new audiences and includes Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, Friel’s Molly Sweeney and G.B. Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.
Mason has forged enduring creative partnerships throughout his career with playwrights such as McGuinness, Kilroy, Friel and Murphy, and believes the playwright to be an essential elucidating presence in rehearsal – integral in the process to make word and action in performance, vivid to the imagination.
He has collaborated with the foremost actors and scenographers of his generation; with Maureen Toal, Olwen Fouéré, Donal McCann, Ingrid Craigie, and with Monica Frawley, Wendy Shea, Frank Hallinan Flood, and Francis O’Connor to name but a few, while his very considerable body of work with scenographer Joe Vanek marks a creative affiliation that inspires and enthralls.
Preferring the term producer to director as it best describes his multifaceted process – his leading out of something with a group of very disparate talents from writer to actor to designer and lighting designer – Mason’s work in rehearsal is to create the fabric of a production; to make curious, to stimulate, to provoke, to make – ultimately form and meaning – it is, really, the stuff of the alchemy of theatre – the leading out of the imaginations of artists to meet and hold the imagination of audiences.
It is our great fortune to have Patrick Mason at work in Irish theatre where his immense craft, his intellect, his generosity, his artistry, and his imagination, emplace the director as producer, at the core of Irish theatrical experience.
Praehonorabilis Pro-Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in Litteris; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.
Text of the inroductory address delivered by Dr Cathy Leeney on 15 June 2013, on the occasion of the presentation of the Ulysses Medal on Bob Crowley
For the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the stage of the Music Box Theater has been remodelled into a sex-drenched boudoir of late Eighteenth-century France. Signs of reckless carnal abandon are everywhere. Huge linen sheets, rumpled from hectic use, drape the proscenium and boxes. Lacy silk underthings tumble in messy profusion from the hastily slammed drawers of a towering chiffonier. Tall slatted screens, the better for servants to peep through, cast distorted shadows. All that’s missing is a proper regal bed. Instead, there’s a constellation of settees and chaise longues; this is an arena for men and women who copulate on the run. The setting, at once in period and nightmarishly abstracted in Bob Crowley’s inspired design, does not belie the action.’ Thus wrote Frank Rich in the New York Times, the notorious critic giving a vivid sense of the stunning design achievement of Bob Crowley, Costume designer and Scenographer for theatre, opera and film, director, and native of Cork. Les Liaisons Dangereuses was hugely successful in Stratford, London and New York and and won Crowley a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design in 1987. Bob Crowley’s complete list of nominations and awards is far too long however to rehearse now; suffice it to say that the Oliviers are many, the Tonys are multiple, the Drama Desk and London Critics Circle repeated and he was the recipient the Royal Design for Industry award. In addition he has twice been part of the British team entry for the Prague Quadrennial International Exhibition of Theatre Design and Architecture, the theatre design equivalent of the Venice Biennale.
Bob Crowley creates worlds. The stage is his space of infinite possibility. Each time he begins the process of creating a design for a production, settings and/or costumes, when he first encounters a new script or hears music from a new score, he faces the empty white page with a ‘rush of delight’ as he explains. This quality of energy, clarity and spatial vision is palpable in his work. He describes the unrelenting stream of decisions that must be made at every point in the process – about time, colour, light, texture, space. He talks about finding chairs for his design for Phèdre; the urgency in searching out exactly the right chair which tells the period, the culture, the civilisation – his words: ‘you can place that space instantly by the information that chair gives you.’ God and the designer are in these details, making and remaking worlds that return the gaze of the audience, that transport us into the action.
Bob Crowley is an artist in four dimensions and his early training in fine art at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork points towards the quality of painterly and sculptural awareness of form, light, colour, and depth so apparent in his designs, for example, for Mourning Becomes Electra, and The Year of Magical Thinking with Vanessa Redgrave both at the Royal National Theatre. For the solo performance of Redgrave, the design included six paintings on silk that spanned the breadth of the stage, charting the character’s journey to the heart of grief, images that are internal landscapes of desolation.
Crowley trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and built his career in Britain. His breakthrough production was The Duchess of Malfi for the Royal Exchange in Manchester with Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins.
In fact Bob Crowley’s working relationship with both the RNT and the Royal Shakespeare Company have been at the core of his non-stop career for over thirty years. He has made designs for many productions of Shakespeare’s plays, and for contemporary works by Alan Bennett, Tom Stoppard, Christopher Hampton, and David Hare, and his designs for opera include work at the Royal Opera, ENO, and Welsh National Opera and for mainland European and US companies.
Some of his major designs have been for musicals, and as a boy in Cork, he loved going to the theatre, musicals and pantomimes with his grandparents; when he saw a touring production of Oliver! designed by another Irish legend in British theatre, Sean Kenny, he was hooked.
In researching the production of Carousel, a huge success in London and on Broadway, he travelled with director Nicholas Hytner, to New England. They stopped at the Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake and saw the meeting house, built in the 1880s, the walls painted a beautiful indigo blue, symbolizing heaven. An image grew of an empty blue box with a revolving floor which was the essence of his design.
Theatre scenography is an elusive art, disappearing into the exquisite temporality of the performance moment; but traces remain: on the web, in photographs, model boxes, on film, and in memories. You may have seen Bob Crowley’s work in the costumes for the film of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with Daniel Day-Lewis, or in his designs for opera in London or New York, or you may have lapped up the pleasure of his creations for Carousel or Once, Mary Poppins, Tarzan or Aida, or if you’ve seen Sting or Duran Duran in concert.
For Field Day Theatre Company you’ll have seen his work for St. Oscar with Stephen Rea as Oscar Wilde, or his co-direction with Rea of Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy. His design for The Three Sisters at the Gate Theatre staged the Cusack family father and daughters in unforgettable form. And if you were lucky enough to catch Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock at the Abbey in 2011, you will have seen his acclaimed representation of the Georgian tenements of Dublin in 1922, what he calls the ‘falling down filthy decrepit grandeur’ in which Sean O’Casey’s Juno Boyle and her family lived. Crammed into subdivided rooms by ruthless landlords, the misery of their absolute poverty was framed with brutal irony by the fine proportions of pillar, cornice and oak floor, remote ceilings of shadowy Italian plasterwork, doorways made wide for elegant egress, their desperation defined by the exquisite light slanting through tall sash windows. The space lived with the actors, materialized the terrible lucidity of O’Casey’s vision. Bob Crowley’s respect for the collaborative process of theatre, for the world of the play and for the audience’s connection into it make him a designer of infinite variety and of genius.
Praehonorabilis Pro-Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in Litteris; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.
Text of the introductory address delivered by Dr P.J. Mathews on 15 June 2013, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa on Conor McPherson
Deputy-President, Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentleman.
Conor McPherson attended UCD between 1988 and 1993, where he was awarded a BA in English and Philosophy, followed by an MA in Philosophy. Simultaneously, McPherson distinguished himself as one of the most talented and active members of UCD Dramsoc, writing plays, directing, and acting in some of the most memorable the society’s productions during that period. In the twenty years since Conor left UCD he has enjoyed international success as a theatre director and film-maker but it is his monumental achievement as a playwright that most distinguishes him as an outstanding contributor to world theatre over the last two decades, an achievement that we honour this afternoon.
In the mid-1990s Conor McPherson quickly emerged as one of the most innovative and energetic playwrights working in the London theatre. In 1996 the Bush Theatre produced his play This Lime Tree Bower (which had previously been produced by Fly By Night Theatre Company in Dublin) followed closely by St. Nicholas in the same theatre a few months later. In 1997 the Royal Court Theatre staged his play, The Weir, which established his reputation as a playwright of international significance, winning numerous awards including the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play, the Critics’ Circle Award and the Evening Standard Award. The Weir enjoyed hugely successful runs at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, on Broadway and, in subsequent years, in countless theatres across the globe. (Note: just finished a run in the West End).
McPherson’s creative burst continued into the new century with productions of Dublin Carol (2000), Port Authority (2001), Shining City (2004) enjoying acclaim in London and Dublin. In 2006 The Seafarer opened at the National Theatre, London and later transferred to Broadway, receiving Tony Award nominations for Best Play and Best Director, and later again to the Abbey Theatre, Dublin for a highly successful run. More recently Conor returned to the National Theatre, London with The Veil in 2011 and his new play, The Night Alive, opened last Wednesday in the West End.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of McPherson’s plays and productions; nor, indeed should we forget his film credits: Conor wrote the screenplay for I Went Down; wrote and directed Saltwater; directed Endgame as part of the Beckett on Film project; and in 2003 wrote and directed The Actors, wrote and directed The Eclipse in 2009.
Conor McPherson can be counted among the last of a pre-Celtic Tiger generation whose formation was enacted in an Ireland of recession and limited opportunity but whose coming of age coincided with the giddy excitement of more prosperous times. In some cases he writes from the perspective of the beleaguered vestige—an older Ireland that is being rapidly eclipsed by the frenzy of an economic boom.
In other works he explores the dynamics of a new amorphous culture where social constraints seem less binding but personal demons still need to be confronted. Consistently, though, his plays register the tectonic movements taking place in Irish culture and society as they are happening. Much of his genius lies in his prescience and in a consciousness acutely tuned to the subterranean tremors of profound social change. In this regard we can align his work with great exponents of Irish theatre such as John Millington Synge, Brian Friel, and Frank McGuinness.
McPherson’s work shines the light into the dark recesses and taboo spaces of Irish life but it also celebrates the gentle and unspoken civilities of the local at a time when these attributes are perceived, to be under threat by brash consumerism.
Much of the power of his drama lies in the simplicity and intensity with which he deploys the art of storytelling. A central theme that emerges in his work is the idea that a community’s sanity and civility can be gauged by the extent to which it provides a warm, courteous space for people to tell their stories without fear of being judged or ridiculed.
Yet there is never a total surrender to the redeeming potentials of pastoral or the palliative effects of nostalgia in these plays. As an audience we may be impressed by the warmth, openness, and richness of McPherson’s characters in story-telling mode but we are equally aware of the material and emotional poverty that underwrites many of their exchanges. These compelling stories often find their origins in delusional ideas of male self-sufficiency or in pathological attachments to place. They flourish, too, in societies caught between impulses of heroic isolation and willing submission to the forces of globalization.
McPherson is now widely recognised as one of the English language’s leading theatrical voices. His distinctive use of the Irish voice, his humour and his masterful story-telling combine to create a distinctive theatrical experience, at once challenging and uplifting. Conor received an early schooling in theatre and performance at UCD; formally, in classes given by Professor Anthony Roche and other colleagues in the then Department of English; and informally in the rehearsal rooms and performance spaces of UCD Dramsoc. In more recent years he has returned to UCD on a regular basis to teach on the MA in Directing and the MA in Drama and Performance. It is eminently fitting that, today, his outstanding contribution to world theatre should be recognised here, in his alma mater, with the award of this honorary doctorate.
Praehonorabilis Pro-Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in Litteris; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.
Text of the inroductory address delivered by Dr Eamonn Jordan on 15 June 2013, on the occasion of the presentation of the Ulysses Medal on Tom Murphy
Deputy-President, Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentleman.
Ireland has produced wonderful artists, performers, film makers, musicians, poets, writers, and, probably most successfully, a significant number of playwrights of world renown. Without doubt, and over a fifty year period, Tom Murphy has produced a body of work that matches the very best of those writing in the English language since the turn of the twentieth century.
Tom Murphy has had an extraordinary career as an award winning playwright, as a novelist, as a theatre director, but also as a screenwriter for RTE, Thames Television, and the BBC. He is a member of Aosdána, a patron of the Irish Theatre Institute and he holds honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin and NUI Galway.
His playwriting career started in 1959 with On the Outside, a play co-written with Noel O’Donoghue. The ground breaking A Whistle in the Dark, which premiered in 1961 at the Theatre Royal in London, is an exceptional play that has not been in any way diminished by time. In that decade, other landmark achievements followed with Famine (1968) and A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant (1969).
Set during Ireland’s Great Famine period, Murphy’s playFamine captures not only the horrors of starvation and the near collapse of hope during that era, but also the conflicts of the emerging nation of his own time, which had inherited in part a famine consciousness. A Crucial Week portrays the terrors of emigration, the lot of the disenfranchised, the consequences of subsistence living, and it makes visible the oppressions and repressions that Ireland’s society circulated at that time.
The 1970s saw a number of important pieces of work, includingThe Morning after Optimism (1971) and The Sanctuary Lamp(1975). The next decade brought three extraordinary dramas,The Gigli Concert (1983), for the Abbey Theatre, which was directed by Patrick Mason, and for Druid Theatre Company,Conversations on a Homecoming (1983) and Bailegangaire(1985), both of which were directed by Garry Hynes. The Gigli Concert is notable for its extraordinary awareness of the dialectics between silence and musicality, light and shadow, despair and a magical, transformative theatricality, andConversations for its wonderful reflections on friendship, the potentials and failures of collective aspirations, and, again, how emigration brings its own overwhelming conflicts.
Then, there is the most extraordinary of plays, Bailegangaire, which encapsulates how, through storytelling, a family comes to terms with and is mobilised by obsessions, loss and grief. By embracing and unravelling, in Tom Murphy’s term, the ‘blood knot’ of family bonds, trauma may be transformed when prompted by admission and by a redeeming laughter.
The most recent phase in Tom Murphy’s career is his on-going commitment to adaptations and new writing; these includeThe Drunkard (2003), The Cherry Orchard (2004), and The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant (2009) and original workssuch as The Wake (1997), The House (2000) and The Alice Trilogy (2005).
Of course, theatre is a collaborative art form. In the Abbey Theatre, after an initial early career rejection, Murphy has found a theatrical partner in tune with his vision. The Abbey Theatre has premiered many of his plays and adaptations, under the stewardships of various Artistic Directors, including Hugh Hunt, Joe Dowling, Lelia Doolan, Tomás Mac Anna, Alan Simpson, Garry Hynes, Vincent Dowling, Patrick Mason, Ben Barnes and Fiach MacConghail, to name but a few. The Abbey Theatre’s Murphy retrospective in 2001 is but one brilliant example of that relationship, and this season included a production of Bailegangaire, starring Pauline Flanagan, Derbhle Crotty and Jane Brennan, with Tom Murphy directing his own play.
Last year’s Druid/Murphy season, toured both nationally and internationally with three plays: Famine, A Whistle in the Darkand Conversations on a Homecoming. This award winning project played to great acclaim in Galway, Dublin, London and New York and two of these three plays are currently on tour. Garry Hynes has called Tom Murphy a ‘house playwright’, and both the Abbey and Druid Theatres have been so fortunate to have a unique collaborator in Tom Murphy. And, in both theatres, Murphy has found brilliantly collegial and creative allies, namely an array of directors, designers and actors that have collectively shaped the performances of his work.
Thanks to these theatrical partnerships, audiences have been given privileged access to plays that are dramaturgically complex, that are richly polyvocal, and that blend multiple spaces and simultaneous time frames. There is also Murphy’s often noted love of music, and the inclusion of music is evident right across his body of work.
Tom Murphy’s work inspired not only others of his own generation but also those that followed; playwrights such as Frank McGuinness, Marina Carr, Billy Roche, Enda Walsh and Conor McPherson have acknowledged their substantial indebtedness. In public interviews for print, radio and television and in interviews with graduate researchers and scholars, Tom Murphy has been exceptionally generous and forthright. Also, three generations of scholars have been inspired to engage with his work, producing Phd theses, books, special journal issues and edited collections dedicated to Tom’s work. The richness and complexity of this body of critical commentary is testament to the regard in which Tom Murphy is held at home and abroad.
Many of the questions that social scientists, political and gender theorists, historians and philosophers have asked are evident in Murphy’s writings; the issues of morality, inequality and justice that all great art complicates are consistently raised by Murphy’s work; and it is also apparent that Murphy’s plays have dramatised many of the mental conundrums and conflictual impulses that cognitive psychology recognises and neuroscience now demonstrates.
Tom Murphy’s great skill is to pare things right down to their essential sounds and gestures, their essential instincts and feelings, their essential conflicts and harmonies. The work is driven by a fundamental grasp of the importance of theatrical vitality and the reach of imagination, thus freeing a performative expressivity that presses towards assertions of resistance, defiance, hope and transformation. It must be said that few individual writing careers survive five decades, and fewer again can sustain a hunger and passion for their art form. Because of Tom’s remarkable creativity, because of his unusual bravery and uncanny virtuosity, and because of his immense dedication to and belief in the magic of the art of theatre, Tom Murphy’s work has not only contributed substantially to the world of theatre, but he has addressed, articulated, and defined the consciousness of his nation.
Praehonorabilis Pro-Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui recipiatur insigne ulixis; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.
Aside
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Posted: July 1, 2013 in Uncategorized
Well after a year of waiting (because it was a year ago that the tickets went on sale). The big day finally arrived.
We braved the snow and headed up to Dublin. The show has changed since we saw it last year. There is now a ‘prequel’ starring ‘Vera and William’ (Lily Osbourne and Michael Falzon) who wander around as the audience are taking their seats. They are looking at a map and looking through a telescope towards the sky. Suddenly the lights flash and the wind blows…..which blew leaves and newspapers onto us as we were in the front row.
Then the music begins. There were changes to the cast this year. Justin Hayward returned as the sung thoughts of the journalist and didn’t disappoint. His voice is as strong and melodic as always and Forever Autumn is especially haunting when the leaves start to fall onto us and…
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Val not me!
If you don’t want to read any spoilers from the show don’t read on 😉 I wasn’t sure about the whole New Generation thing as I am a massive fan of the original album and show. However my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go to Dublin and see what I thought.
You’ll have to forgive the lack of photos. The O2 were being really strict about people taking photos so I just sneaked a few and they aren’t great. The show begin with ‘William and Vera’ (Michael Falzon and Lily Osborne), they had more of a speaking part than in the 2010 show although they didn’t walk into the audience this time. There was the gust of wind at the end of their part where the newspapers blew into the audience.
Liam Neeson is now George Herbert the journalist, taking over from Richard…
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Tomorrow will see Sligo celebrate the birthday of W. B. Yeats. There are festivities going on from ‘Dawn to Dusk’. The fun begins in the morning with ‘Breakfast of the Lake Isle of Innisfree’.
There are lots of various events happening during the day. The full list of events is here.
Sligo town is looking great already with various artwork dedicated to W. B. Yeats. There have been art competitions taking place in local schools, the students are very talented.
I’m really looking forward to the party in O’Connell Street which takes place from 4.30-6.30pm there will be fiddlers and fairies, birthday cake and balloons. No Crows will end the day at 8.45pm with a concert at Sligo Abbey.
BERTELSMANN & PEARSON FINALIZE MERGER TRANSACTION
(July 1, 2013)—The global senior executive team for Penguin Random House was announced today by Chief Executive Officer Markus Dohle, following the closing of the transaction by shareholders Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and Pearson this morning to formally establish the venture. Bertelsmann owns 53% and Pearson 47% of the company. Penguin Random House will combine the adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India; Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia and South Africa; Dorling Kindersley worldwide; and Random House’s companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. Random House’s German-language publishing group, Verlagsgruppe Random House, is outside the venture, and remains part of Bertelsmann, continuing to report to Mr. Dohle.
Between mid-February and early June, in order of review, Penguin Random House received governmental merger control approval in the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, the European Commission, Canada, South Africa, and China, all without condition.
Penguin Random House will employ more than 10,000 people across five continents. It will comprise nearly 250 editorially and creatively independent imprints and publishing houses that collectively publish more than 15,000 new titles annually. Its publishing lists include more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.
Effective with today’s closing, Markus Dohle, Chairman and CEO of Random House worldwide since 2008, assumes the position of CEO, Penguin Random House, and John Makinson, head of the Penguin Group worldwide since 2002, takes on the position of Chairman of Penguin Random House. The Penguin Random House Board appointments were announced separately by Bertelsmann and Pearson this morning.
Mr. Dohle said, “Today, Penguin and Random House officially unite to create the first truly global trade book publishing company. As separate companies, we have long performed outstandingly by every benchmark; as colleagues, we will share and apply our passion for publishing the best books with our enormous experience, creativity, and entrepreneurial drive. Together, we will give our authors unprecedented resources to help them reach global audiences—and we will provide readers with unparalleled diversity and choice for future reading. Connecting authors and readers is, and will be, at the heart of all we strive to accomplish together.”
John Makinson said, “Penguin Random House starts life today as a freshly minted company, but also as a creative enterprise that will draw on the greatest legacies in the history of book publishing. That heritage will help to frame the culture and personality of Penguin Random House as we place our extraordinary shared resources at the service of our authors, our customers, our readers, and our colleagues. It is an exciting day for all of us.”
In announcing his senior executive appointments, Mr. Dohle said, “Our global and local leadership comprises proven executives drawn from both sides of the company who are inclusive and collaborative with colleagues in their decision making and who fully support our publishers and our authors in realizing their vision and objectives for our books.”
Effective immediately, the following newly appointed executives report to Mr. Dohle, who additionally serves as CEO for the Penguin Random House U.S. company:
Coram Williams, previously CFO for the Penguin Group, will serve in a dual capacity as Chief Financial Officer for Penguin Random House, in the U.S. and worldwide. Mr. Williams will also oversee the self-publishing business Author Solutions.
David Shanks has stepped down as CEO, Penguin Group (USA). He will serve as Senior Executive Advisor to Mr. Dohle and the U.S. executive team.
Madeline McIntosh, formerly Chief Operating Officer, Random House U.S., becomes President and Chief Operating Officer of Penguin Random House in the U.S.
Brad Martin, formerly President and CEO of Random House of Canada, is appointed CEO of Penguin Random House in Canada.
Tom Weldon assumes responsibility for Penguin Random House in the U.K. as CEO. He was previously Chief Executive Officer, Penguin Group UK.
Gail Rebuck will become Chair of the Penguin Random House U.K. Board.
Ian Hudson will serve as Deputy CEO of Penguin Random House U.K., a position he previously held at Random House UK. Separately, he will oversee Penguin Random House’s operations in Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and Asia in his capacity as Chief Executive Officer, Penguin Random House International (English Language).
Gabrielle Coyne will be CEO of Penguin Random House Asia Pacific and Gaurav Shrinagesh will be CEO of Penguin Random House India. Ms. Coyne previously served as CEO of Penguin Group Asia Pacific, and Mr. Shrinagesh as Managing Director of Random House India. Stephen Johnson will continue to lead Penguin Books South Africa. They will all report to Mr. Hudson.
Also, continuing in their current capacities:
Núria Cabutí, Chief Executive, leads the company in Spain and Latin America; it will operate under the name Random House Mondadori.
John Duhigg, Chief Executive, Dorling Kindersley, is responsible for the Dorling Kindersley (DK) business worldwide.
Mr. Dohle announced the appointments of three executives with Penguin Random House global corporate responsibilities: Frank Steinert will be the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Stuart Applebaum will lead communications, and Milena Alberti will oversee corporate development, each having served in similar capacities at Random House. All will also have responsibility in the U.S. for their respective corporate functions.
Mr. Dohle also announced the newly formed Penguin Random House Global Executive Committee to work together with him to set the company’s strategic, operational, and publishing direction and priorities. The Committee’s members are:
Núria Cabutí; Gina Centrello, President and Publisher, Random House Publishing Group; Tony Chirico, President, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Gabrielle Coyne; John Duhigg; Leslie Gelbman, President, Mass Market Paperbacks, Penguin Group U.S.; Ian Hudson; Barbara Marcus, President and Publisher, Random House Children’s Books; Brad Martin; Maya Mavjee, President and Publisher, Crown Publishing Group; Madeline McIntosh; Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Susan Petersen Kennedy, President, Penguin Group U.S.; Andrew Phillips, Chief Executive Officer, Author Solutions; Frank Steinert; Don Weisberg, President, Penguin Young Readers Group U.S.; Tom Weldon; and Coram Williams.
Penguin Random House world headquarters are in New York City.
Penguin Random House (http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/) is the world’s first truly global trade book publisher. It was formed on July 1, 2013, upon the completion of an agreement between Bertelsmann and Pearson to merge their respective trade publishing companies, Random House and Penguin, with the parent companies owning 53% and 47%, respectively. Penguin Random House comprises the adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia and South Africa; Dorling Kindersley worldwide; and Random House’s companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. Penguin Random House employs more than 10,000 people globally across almost 250 editorially and creatively independent imprints and publishing houses that collectively publish more than 15,000 new titles annually. Its publishing lists include more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.
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