project arts centre Tag Archive

2334

June 25, 2016 • devious theatre, Theatre

The Hellfire Squad

The Hellfire Squad - Main Poster

Say your prayers, The Hellfire Squad have risen.

Here’s the first look at the titular band of assassins assembled by Michael Collins in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising. They will be brought to the stage in Devious Theatre’s newest production next month.

A work blessing, gun running, porter swilling, scheme hatching, agent killing, hooley throwing, ballad singing, yarn spinning, card playing, hurl swinging, bomb rigging, shit kicking, freedom fighting, bullet spewing, hell blazing shower of miscreants as you’ll ever meet. God bless the work.

‪I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to put anything on the stage and I don’t think I ever will be again. Peter McGann and myself have been working on it for the past number of years and Sarah Baxter is currently doing a damn fine job of directing us into shape. The great costumes here are designed by Helen McGinty with some damn fine photography and design from Ken McGuire.

The show plays Project Arts Centre, Dublin from July 18-23 and Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny from July 28-30. For more visit devioustheatre.com

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3853

March 14, 2016 • devious theatre, Theatre

God Bless The Work…

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After 7 years of mild to intensive labour, Peter McGann and myself have finally given birth to The Hellfire Squad. It’ll be the first play focusing solely on Michael Collins infamous hit squad, a Dirty Dozen style adventure about the assembly, training and deployment of a bunch of mismatched assassins in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising. I’m very excited to debut this new play as part of Devious Theatre’s 10th birthday programme, handily entitled Devious 10. The production will be directed by the brilliant Sarah Baxter, who I mostly recently worked with on Taboo, and produced by the bold Ken McGuire, who I have worked on a stupid amount of theatre with over the past 10 years. It will take its debut bow in Project Arts Centre, Dublin from 18-23 July and Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny from 28-30 July as part of this years Alternative Kilkenny Arts programme. God bless the work.

We are about to launch a Fund It campaign for the play so keep an eye out for that and maybe help support the cause.

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1481

December 13, 2014 • Uncategorized

War Of Attrition

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Currently in the midst of a new run of my play War Of Attrition. We just finished a three night stay in Kilkenny and its up to Dublin from this Monday for a six night run in Project Arts Centre.

The Irish Times previews the piece yesterday and wrote these nice words:

“Devious Theatre returns with its Fringe hit from last year, a comic and darkly subversive take on chuggers, bilious internet bloggers and psychopathy. An unlikely camaraderie develops between a charity worker, an online scourge and a homeless guy, and it disintegrates just as quickly, with hilarious performances from John Doran, Roseanna Purcell and its writer John Morton (below). All are given supple direction by Niamh Moroney.”

That sums it up in a nutshell really. So if you’re looking for some theatre as you approach Christmas week, get thee to Project Arts Centre for some troll hunting, life hacking, online feuding, cyber spills and thrills.

We’re playing at 8.15pm nightly in Project Cube from Monday 15th to Saturday 20th and you can get your tickets for the show right here. Props to Paddy Dunne for these new poster designs too, slick as ya like.

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1376

October 5, 2014 • devious theatre, Theatre

No Love, Just War

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Very excited that my play War Of Attrition is returning this December for a run in Project Arts Centre in Dublin and the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny.

The play had a successful debut run last year at Dublin Fringe Festival before making its way to Galway Theatre Festival. It received 4 star reviews from Irish Theatre Magazine and The Irish Times as well as garnering a Fringe Awards nomination for Best Female Performer for Roseanna Purcell’s role as Daisy. John Doran and myself are rejoining her in the cast and director Niamh Moroney will be back to crack the whip on us.

As the synopsis for the show goes:

Daisy is an unwitting internet celebrity, the ‘Psycho Chugger’ whose video currently has 178, 234 views on Youtube – it is ruining her life.

Alan, a blogger by the name of Generalissimo Malaise who claims to target the ‘everyday arsehole’, is the one who made it.

And Chris, well he just got caught in the crossfire.

There will be casualties when a nasty game of one-upmanship descends into a relentless war. War Of Attrition is a destructively comic thriller that takes you from parties on the streets of Dublin to the darkest parts of the internet where revolution is brewing.

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The show plays The Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny from December 9th-11th and Project Arts Centre, Dublin from December 15th-20th. Tickets for both shows can now be booked online.

I was delighted with the response to the show last year so I’m absolutely delighted to get the opportunity to present the show again. For all info on the show, keep an eye on devioustheatre.com

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1630

January 8, 2013 • theatre

Konstantin Has Shot Himself

My first job for the new year is a new play with Sheer Tantrum for THE THEATRE MACHINE TURNS YOU ON: Vol 3. This is a brilliant festival organised by the good people of THEATREclub and one I’ve been lucky enough to participate in before when Scratcher had its debut performance at Vol 2 in February 2011. It was a brilliant experience and myself and the Devious Theatre team got to see a lot of great shows and generally had the height of craic over a couple of days in Dublin.

This time I’m working with Sheer Tantrum on their new play Konstantin Has Shot Himself. It’s a devised piece that we’ve been working on since late November and it revolves around Chekhov’s famous play The Seagull. Although if you’re not familiar with that play (or if you just plain hate Chekhov), it’s no impediment to enjoying it. We’re mostly focusing on themes that The Seagull brings up like the nature of performance, art vs entertainment and what it is to fail as an artist. And check it out, we have a puppet in it too… he’s pretty sound. Chekhov thought the play he wrote was a comedy… and good for him. So we’ve definitely taken a comic approach to it and it should provide plenty of laughs, like all good classic Russian theatre!

The production is directed by the show’s mastermind Vincent A. O’Reilly and I’ve been delighted to work with a crack team of brilliant actors in Alicja Ayres, Duncan Lacroix, Sinead O’Brien and Simon Toal. We’re still tightening it before its debut performance on Thursday in Project Arts Centre but if you like laugh out loud comedies about suicidal 19th century Russian dramatists, well then you’re in for a treat. And if you don’t like that, you’re still in for a treat.

Konstantin Has Shot Himself is one of the New Releases of THE THEATRE MACHINE TURNS YOU ON: Vol 3. It plays Project Arts Centre on January 10th and 11th at 7pm nightly and you can book your tickets right here.

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1500

November 15, 2012 • devious theatre

De Tempst

Or The Tempest if you like proper spelling and grammar. I’m very lucky and delighted to be making another directing contribution to this years TEXT | Messages in Project Arts Centre. This time I’ll be directing, yup, The Tempest.

TEXT | Messages is a brilliant project that gives directors a chance to take 160 lines of Shakespeare and do whatever you want with them. But the rub is, the lines must be consecutive and there’s no editing. So you need to roll up your sleeves and get nice and inventive! I’ve joined up with my muckers Stephen Colfer, John Doran and Eddie Murphy to come up with the goods on this one and we’ve put together a really nice tale of two drunken bog monsters who get kicked out of a Dublin nightclub and end up getting involved with a scheming native homeless man. So same text, different story. From our Dreamstuff days (which took its name from The Tempest funnily enough) to Devious Theatre’s Shakespeare In Bits battle rap in 2009, myself and the fellows have done an awful lot of Shakespeare tinkering over the years so it’s great to work with them on something new. Like last years version of Pyramus and Thisbe from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we’ve come up with a similarly twisted take on The Tempest. And of course, we’re playing it for laughs.

We are only on for one night only… TONIGHT! So if you fancy it, you’ll get three ‘messages’ for the princely sum of €5. There are also two other nights, as lovingly curated and produced by Aoife Spillane-Hinks, Conor Hanratty and Megan Riordan so plenty of choice all round! Kick off is 8.15pm in Project Arts Centre and you can get more booking details here!

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1274

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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