Professor Mel Mercier of the University of Limerick has won a prestigious Irish Times Theatre Award for the second year in a row.
Prof Mercier, Chair of Performing Arts at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, won this year’s award for Best Soundscape for his original music for the Gare St Lazare Ireland production of Samuel Beckett’s How it is (Part 1).
The production was directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett, performed by Conor Lovett, Stephen Dillane and Mel Mercier and performed at the Everyman Palace (Cork) and The Print Rooms (London) in February and May of last year.
It received a five star review from the Irish Times which praised “a flawless conjunction of acting and staging”, while the Irish Examiner said “Mel Mercier’s stunning soundscape brings this production to a whole other level”.
Another review, in the The Stage, said: “Mel Mercier’s atmospheric sound adds moments of existential dread, while the three amplified performers occasionally end up talking over each other in unison – a bewildering yet effective device.”
Prof Mercier also won the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Soundscape in 2018 for his original music for the Corcadorca (Cork) production of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, which was staged on Spike Island.
The 22nd staging of the Irish Times Theatre Awards took place at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on Sunday, March 31.