Arthur Lappin

Irish stage, TV and movie producer Arthur Lappin received his first feature film credit as line producer on "Now I Know" (1988) before beginning his long-standing association with Jim Sheridan. He served as a line producer on Sheridan's directing debut "My Left Foot" (1989), a biographical drama of wheel-chair bound artist Christy Brown that earned Oscars for stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker. Since then, Lappin has collaborated frequently with Sheridan, serving as line producer on "The Field" (1990), co-producer on "In the Name of the Father" (1993) and producer for both "Some Mother's Son" (1996) and "The Boxer" (1997). With director Ben Barnes, Lappin established what for a time was Ireland's leading independent theatrical production company, Groundwork Productions, in 1988. Groundwork had successfully revived the plays of John B. Keane, including "The Year of the Hiker" (1990), "Moll" (1991), "The Chastitute" and "The Man from Clare" (both 1993) and "Sive" (1994), but disappointing attendance for "Guys and Dolls" (1995) and Keane's "The Field" (1996) forced it into liquidation in 1996. He serves as Chairman of the Board for the Children's Cultural Centre Ltd., trading as The Ark (Dublin, Ireland), programmed exclusively for participants aged between four and fourteen years.