2011 Tag Archive

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December 13, 2011 • devious theatre, Theatre

Sending TEXT | Messages

I’m currently working on a really exciting project that’s all up in breaking down Shakespeare.

TEXT | Messages sees nine emerging directors tackle 160 lines of Shakespeare in no more than 20 minutes. It takes place over three nights with three directors presenting their work per night. So it’s a lot of Shakespeare in a short burst of time. The project has been curated and produced by Conor Hanratty, Aoife Spillane-Hinks, Lara Hickey and Megan Riordan. I was absolutely delighted to be asked to take part, especially considering that there’s some serious directorial talent involved including Edwina Casey, Conor Hanratty, Jose Miguel Jimenez, Sophie Motley, Oonagh Murphy, Aonghus Óg McAnally, Aoife Spillane-Hinks and Lianne O’Shea. Everyone is taking a knife to Shakespeare in their own way and it should make for 9 really different pieces of work.

The piece I chose was from one of my favourite plays A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I kinda figured I could adapt the play within the play Pyramus and Thisbe in one very compact 160 line chunk and still retain its essence. And so far in rehearsal, it’s been working really well! Shakespeare’s inspiration for that play was apparently the bad troupes of actors he saw interpreting his work. So we’ve turned ourselves into a bad troupe (ahem) and are performing Pyramus and Thisbe as bad as it was performed by Peter Quince’s raggle taggle company in the original play. It’s very much done within the style of a play within a play… within a collection of plays.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was my first ever directing gig on a play (as assistant director on the Dreamstuff production when I was 17) so it’s nice to return to it for this project. I’ve stuck with a lot of the usual troupe of actors I play with so I’ll be joined in the piece by the talented players that are John Doran, Amy Dunne, Ken McGuire and David Thompson. It’s a nice little theatrical nightcap for what has been an insanely prolific year of theatre for the lot of us. And after… perchance to sleep.

Our troupe will be performing tomorrow Wednesday December 14th along with pieces from Aoife Spillane-Hinks and Aonghus Óg McAnally. The kick off time is 8.15pm, tickets are only €5 and available from the Project Arts Centre website. The show itself opens tonight Tuesday December 13th and it runs until Thursday December 15th in Project Arts Centre.

Photo by Ross Costigan Photography.

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November 27, 2011 • Theatre

Voices In The Rubble

What’s currently keeping me busy is this new production from Sheer Tantrum which is enjoying a 2 week run up in the Pearse Centre in Dublin City.

The Dublin based company are performing two absurd one act plays, the first of which is The Applicant which is written and directed by Vincent A. O’Reilly. I saw it for the first time last night (normally I’m quaffing Red Bull backstage… or Blue Bear, depending on finances) and it’s absolutely fantastic. A really sharp, pointed, funny, satirical piece of theatre with some brilliant performances. It was my first opportunity to see how the two plays matched up. Really well it turns out.

I’m working on Voices In The Rubble which is written and directed by Darren Donohue. I’m in a cast which also includes Frank Conlon, Amy Dunne and David Thompson. That’s the four of us up above there. Fun fact: That picture in no way relates to anything that happens in the play. I don’t have a clue what we were doing there… but we look into it.

It’s another really fast paced, sharp piece of absurd theatre which revolves around 40 years of marriage being condensed into 40 minutes. Somebody recently asked me what it was like and I described it as ‘I Love Lucy directed by David Lynch’. I think that sums it up. We previously performed it in Kilkenny back in September and it’s been great to take it up to Dublin for a spin.

The previews and first two performances have come and gone and now we’ve got one more week left in the Pearse Centre (which is a really lovely new performance space right in the centre of Dublin). You can book tickets online at entertainment.ie or else get them on the door. It runs until this Friday December 2nd and kick off is at 7.30pm nightly.

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1131

October 13, 2011 • bash: latterday plays, devious theatre

A Trailer For Bash

Here’s a trailer we did for our upcoming production of Neil LaBute’s bash: latterday plays.

It’s fairly simple stuff. We shot the opening lines of each of the three plays within bash (Iphigenia In Orem, A Gaggle Of Saints and Medea Redux) and set it to some lovely Billie Holiday music (featured quite heavily in the text) and that was it. The reason my mouth is covered in this promo photo is because I didn’t have the David Brent goatee I’ll be sporting in Iphigenia In Orem. Clever, eh? Our crack team of theatre professionals are full of clever tricks like that.

We’re currently nearing the final hurdle of production as bash opens in Cleere’s Theatre this Monday night October 17th If you’re looking for tickets you can get them in Cleere’s, book them on 056 – 7762573 or online here.

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October 4, 2011 • bash: latterday plays, devious theatre

The Bash Posters

Last week we unveiled a whole series of posters for Devious Theatre’s upcoming production of Neil LaBute’s bash: latterday plays. There’s one for each of the plays within bash: iphigenia in orem, a gaggle of saints and medea redux. They’ve been excellently designed as usual by Paddy Dunne. I’m going to be appearing in iphigenia in orem, possibly with my hand over my mouth for a while. And here’s the posters:

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September 13, 2011 • devious theatre, Theatre

So, There Was This Bash…

The next Devious Theatre production is going to be bash: latterday plays by Neil LaBute.

After the In The Future When All’s Well season we were looking forward to a nice long break. But well… we got the new premises and wanted to get some use out of it this year. Also, we’re suckers for punishment.

We’ve been looking to do something by Neil LaBute for quite some time, as we’re really big fans of his writing. So when we decided to do another production before the end of 2011, we took it as a welcome opportunity to finally stage one of his plays.

And that play is bash, one of his most controversial works. It consists of three monologues that tell seemingly normal stories from normal people but, yup, they’re anything but. Like a lot of LaBute’s stage work (The Shape Of Things, reasons to be pretty, Wrecks, Fat Pig) it takes a look at the dark impulses that drive civilised people. We’ve given it the tagline of ‘Three Horror Stories Of Everyday Evil’ which sums up our take on it. We’re doing it around Halloween time but it’s a bit of an unconventional choice of ‘horror’ material. It’s more of a gut punching, nauseating, awkward kind of experience. Way to build it up, eh? In short, it’s a fucking excellent piece of writing and we’re very excited. It’s a real departure from our trademark style of comedy so I hope we deliver with something ‘deviant’.

I’ll be acting in Iphigenia In Orem, which I’m thrilled to perform. It’s the story of a young businessman who makes a confession to a stranger in a Las Vegas bedroom. Rehearsals started last week under the sturdy hand of Ken McGuire and I’m pretty sure it’s going to preclude me from much of a social life for the next month. I’m also doing some directing myself for Medea Redux which is being performed by Annette O’Shea, and based on what she’s already showed us, it’s going to be epic. The final piece is A Gaggle Of Saints performed by Amy Dunne and Ken McGuire and directed by Annette O’Shea.

So that’s the basic info on the play. We’re going to be performing it in the intimate surroundings of Cleere’s Theatre from October 17th – 22nd. You can tickets online here. I’ll write more about it as I have more to write. I really need to go and start learning my lines.

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August 1, 2011 • film production, Hot Water Bottle, mycrofilms, short film

Hot Water Bottle

This is the poster for a film I made called Hot Water Bottle.

It was designed by Paddy Dunne, one of the producers on the film. The other producer is Alan Slattery. The three of us also made the webcom Vultures.

It’s the first non Vultures creative project that Mycrofilms have undertaken. The second is Baby Love by Terrence White which is out later this year. Two more short films will go into production for 2012 and they’re probably going to be even better because that’s how these things roll.

We got the funding to shoot Hot Water Bottle in 2009. We started shooting it in 2010. We finished shooting it in 2011. There will be a trailer for it sometime very, very soon. The film itself is currently being sent out to a variety of festivals who may or may not want to show it to people.

I will write more about it in proportion to the amount of content I have to show off.

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July 22, 2011 • Theatre

The Undertakers

Tonight I’ll be doing a rehearsed reading of Gillian Grattan‘s new play The Undertakers in The Bridgebrook Arms in Thomastown. It’s a very dark and witty comedy and affords me the opportunity of getting to perform but not have to learn a script off. Also, mostly sitting down.

It kicks off at 8pm and it’s all entirely for free so if you’re in the vicinity pop in.

The cast also features fellow Deviants David Thompson and Aoibhín Murphy along with Bobby McDonald, Brian Hamilton, Orla Kelly and Sid Evans.

It’s a nice come down after the past 6 months… sitting, reading… mmmm… mild laziness.

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May 31, 2011 • Uncategorized

The Revolution Has Been Youtubed

Over at Devious Theatre (where I’ve been spending most of my days this year) we just released a video peek at our first show of 2011 Scratcher.

Scratcher was the first part of our current In The Future When All’s Well season in Kilkenny Arts Office. I wrote it in 2010 when I wanted to do something short, sharp and angry and I ended up being very happy with the end result. It played Dublin and Kilkenny in February around the same time as the national elections so it ended up landing right at the perfect time to stage a play based on change and revolution. We were very lucky that it ended up playing at a time when people were just sick to death of bullshit really.

The video here mostly demonstrates our front of house set up which was done to mirror a dole office in a very heightened way and generally make our audience feel fairly uncomfortable. If you didn’t attend the play have a look see and if you did, maybe you can find yourself shuffling your feet and trying to get through the queue very quickly?

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April 5, 2011 • devious theatre, devious+theatre, stage play, Uncategorized

The Shifting Posters

I’m currently directing, Shifting, the second part of Devious Theatre’s ‘In The Future When All’s Well’ series. The play is written by John Kennedy who has been working on it since the end of last year and throughout the first 3 months of our residency in Kilkenny Arts Office. It’s a funny, charming and bittersweet look at the inevitable intersection between your teenage years and adulthood. In fact, in terms of previous Devious Theatre plays I like to call this one our John Hughes. That’s kicking the hypometer up to a high point but fuck it, no harm in aiming high.

We’ve just released 3 individual character posters for Shifting as designed by Paddy Dunne, the magician behind all of our promo imagery. It’s basically 12 teenagers on a couch. What’s not to love?

Shifting plays in No. 76 John Street from April 18th – 23rd. Tickets are onsale in No. 76, online at DeviousTheatre.com or can be booked on 056 – 7794138. If anyone’s looking for discounts, the opening night is only €5!

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