Roland Jaquarello

During this period, he showed his interest in European drama by directing Police, the first Irish production of the Polish playwright Sławomir Mrożek's comic satire on political power.

In the mid-1970s he ran an enterprising season for the Welsh Drama Company at The Sherman Theatre, Cardiff where he directed productions of August Strindberg's Miss Julie, Bertolt Brecht's The Exception and the Rule and Fernando Arrabal's The Car Cemetery.

Actors like Brid Brennan, Liam Neeson, Michael Loughnan, John O'Toole, Patch Connolly, David Haig, Robert O'Mahoney and Kevin Wallace were among those who worked for the company.

Green Fields and Far Away received an Irish Post Award for its work in 1981 and an insightful documentary film about the company, directed by John Lynch, was transmitted on RTÉ.

During the 80s, he also worked as artistic director of Live Theatre Company, Newcastle, England where he expanded the repertoire to include Graham Reid's The Death of Humpty Dumpty, a powerful play about how a Belfast family deals with a father becoming a paraplegic as a result of sectarian violence.

Innovative classical revivals of Sean O' Casey's The Plough and the Stars, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest with Conleth Hill as Algernon and J. M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' were also produced.

However at the centre of his progressive artistic leadership were his own ambitious productions of three American classics: After the Fall by Arthur Miller, with Tim Woodward and Claire Hackett giving memorable performances in the leading roles, The Iceman Cometh with Peter Marinker as a fine Hickey and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with strong performances from Sara Stewart as Maggie and Patrick O'Kane as Brick.

His productions include work for BBC Radio 4 and 3 by experienced writers like John Arden, Brian Friel, Sebastian Barry, Mark Lawson, Gary Mitchell, Carlo Gébler, Robin Glendinning, Christopher Fitz-Simon, Christina Reid, Jonathan Myerson and Larry Gelbart, writer of TV's M*A*S*H. He also produced and directed William Trevor's The Property of Colette Nervi, which was nominated for the Prix Italia Play Section, 1999, and Martin Lynch's modern Belfast version of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People.

Roland Jaquarello has also expanded his work in broadcasting by producing music documentaries on Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Mel Tormé and Marlon Brando for BBC Radio 2.

In 2008 Roland Jaquarello founded his own company Giant Steps which produced ‘Enduring Freedom’ by Anders Lustgarten, a play, which dramatised how the personal and political legacy of the post 9/11 orthodoxy affected a New Jersey couple.