Director Garry Hynes Featured on 'Downstage Center,' 8/4

The American Theatre Wing and XM Satellite Radio will present an interview with Tony Award®-winner Garry Hynes on their weekly theatrical interview show, "Downstage Center," on XM's On Broadway (XM Channel 28). Hynes will appear as the special guest on Friday, August 4 at 6 p.m. The show will repeat on Saturday, August 5 at noon, Sunday, August 6 at 7 p.m., and Wednesday, August 9 at midnight, all listed times EST; the program airs nationally as a simultaneous broadcast across all time zones.

Most recently, Hynes directed the eight-hour "DruidSynge," which played at the Lincoln Center Festival and at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis.

After founding Druid in 1975, Hynes served as artistic director from 1975 to 1991 and from 1995 to date. From 1991 to 1994, she was the artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

In addition to "DruidSynge," her productions with Druid include: The Year of the Hiker, Sharon's Grave, Sive, On Raftery's Hill (co-production with the Royal Court Theatre), The Lonesome West, Lovers Meeting, Conversations on a Homecoming, Bailegangaire, The Shaughraun, and The Wood of the Whispering. For Abbey Theatre she directed King of the Castle, The Plough and the Stars, The Power of Darkness, Famine, A Whistle in the Dark, and Portia Coughlan. Her other theater credits include The Man of Mode and Song of the Nightingale (Royal Shakespeare Company), Mr. Peters' Connections (Signature Theatre, New York), My Brilliant Divorce (London's West End), Crestfall (Gate Theatre, Dublin), 16 Wounded (Broadway), and A Streetcar Named Desire (Kennedy Center, Washington DC). Hynes has received honorary doctorates from University of Dublin (2004), the National University of Ireland (1998), and the National Council for Education Awards (1988).

In 1998 she became the first woman to receive a Tony Award® as a Director, for The Beauty Queen of Leenane. She is a recipient of many other theater awards, including The Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Award for Best Director (2002) and a Special Tribute Award for her contribution to Irish theater, in February 2005. On June 15 she was awarded the Freedom of the City of Galway.

This fall, Hynes will direct Brian Friel's Translations at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, after which it will transfer to the Manhattan Theatre Club's Biltmore Theatre in early 2007.

Each new "Downstage Center" program is regularly broadcast at 6 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays at noon, Sundays at 7 p.m. and Wednesdays at 12 a.m. (all times EST). Following the initial run on XM, each program is made available for free, on-demand, internationally on ATW's website, www.americantheatrewing.org.