Accents on stage ...

... interesting article/ blog in the Guardian: here

From my experience examining and adjudicating, I do find that many children and young people, when performing a solo drama piece set, for example, in the US, concentrate so hard on creating and sustaining an accent that it interferes with other aspects of their performance, which suffers as a result.

Most times it's the character, and the content of the drama rather than the location that's important. So why not locate the piece locally, even though it's originally set somewhere else. By simply changing the location to Ireland, the young actor can concentrate on his or her performance and making the character believable, without having worry about the authenticity of her/ his accent.

This is just a personal opinion, not Irish Board policy or anything like that.

I'd welcome views and comments ...