Grenades and Grants

We are in blood stepped in so far that should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go oe'er.

Ah no, it's not that bad. But we are in the thick of rehearsals now. If we were a Fianna Fail poster (before the bust) we'd say 'A lot done, more to do.' But, as we are a theatre company and trained in the dangers of hubris, when we are asked 'How are rehearsals going?' we just answer 'Ah yeah grand yeah - great yeah grand.'

Checklist:

Thirty-two pages of script - twenty-five of them learned
Four eight-foot-high by four-foot-long flats and accompanying supports - constructed (yes, by our own fair hands) but still to be decorated
Lights and sound - in Mike's capable hands
Posters - posted
Flyers - flying
Radio and paper interviews - coming soon!
Tour dates - Nenagh on the 9th December (Anyone else out there in venue-land fancy replying to us? ...anyone?)

Maaaany rivers to cross, as the man sang.

Galway City Council have (or so the article in the Galway Advertiser leads us to believe) given us €3,000. We are planning how to spend it. It won't be hard. A lovely fillip, a little whoosh. Deeper into the river...

Galway Theatre Festival 2010

The Galway Theatre Festival was launched on Monday 20th September. Most of the participating theatre companies met up beforehand at the Arts Centre and swapped histories and intentions. There was a photocall at Nun's Island that involved a red carpet and confetti and then we went to Massimo where the festival was officially launched by Michael D. He gave us all a warm fuzzy feeling while simultaneously girding our loins. G'wan the arts!

Tuath Thuama go Buan*

Two of the divas took themselves off in the van yesterevening to the town of Tuam. We were looking for Canavan's pub, so with our highly tuned pub antennae quivering, we parked opposite the Cathedral, walked down to the town centre where all roads converge, followed the direction of a man's wave et voila! we had arrived.

We were in Tuam for a spot of guerilla theatre with Earwig Arts Festival. No balaclavas involved. Just waiting in a room, which must have been a sitting room in the long gone 'living over the shop' days, as the audience came up the stairs past us. Along with the high ceiling, marble fireplace and huge gilded mirror, an actor in a barrister's wig added to the impression that we were 'on the circuit' - some kind of touring show of villains and judiciary that were here to entertain the good people of Tuam.

And so we did! The warmth of audiences (dare it be said) west of the Shannon never ceases to gratify and gladden the lonely heart of the actor. Tuam, we salute you. We went out and did our bit of ten minute theatre and we won't forget the beaming faces, the genuine laughter that rippled and tickled, the attention they gave to the detail of our efforts. The cherry on top was a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine when the judges (judges? thank God we hadn't known there were judges!) came back from their deliberations.

Off we went, happy as two Larrys, and not even the treacheries of the N17 could dampen our spirits. Best production! Take that, you pothole!

* Long Live the People of Tuam!

Turf Wars

In the heaving, sunshine-showery day, out on Quay Street, we jostle to be seen, to be heard. A pair of aul shawlies and Buachaill Deas. 'Come and see our play'. 'Four o'clock today, tomorrow and Friday'. 'One o'clock all next week.' 'Except Wednesday'. Darren shoughs the dudeen and charms the cailins. We dance a jig. Emma tries to light a fag and is continuously told by concerned old ladies that smoking is bad for her. We tell passing parents the show is suitable for kids. They size us up. It is! Honest!

Into the venue at half three. The previous show has just finished up. It's going to be tight today. The first audience lingers while we set about setting up. They are hardly gone when pub maintenance arrives and sets about fixing the disco ball. The disco ball? Yes. It spins menacingly. We are still tweaking the show. We shout our lines. The maintenance men shout theirs. Our lights go on strike. Do we have sound? The air is stuffy. We are wearing wool and tweed. God help us. What's the time? Four o'clock. Open the house. Peek through the curtain. There's the audience. Faces from our flyering on Quay Street. Hello.

Time and Space. Keep fighting.

We go up to the launch of NUIG Summer Festival. Emma reads a section from Tara's play: Grenades. Look at that accent! Flawless. Watch that writing! Beautiful. We will follow it like a map.

We, The Little People

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. We performed The World's Wife at Body and Soul in Meath (or Westmeath?) last weekend. It was a rose garden venue, the lights were provided by the sun and the blue sky, and our audience lounged on beanbags and cushions. There was the teensy-weensy drawback of two massive sound systems on nearby stages ... let's just say our throats had out-of-body experiences.

We have started rehearsals for our next lunchtime (well, from 4pm to 5pm) show at Kelly's (12th-16th July and 22nd & 23rd July). It's our own adaptation of a book called 'Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland' by a chap called Thomas Crofton Croker. Written way back in the 1830s it's a collection of folk tales and fairy tales from The Plain People of Ireland. The stories are simple and strong, archetypal and ancient, funny and ... (some other word starting with f?)... forthright. We play English scholars (think Robin Flower, Sygne et al )and Irish peasants (you know yourself: Molly, Jack and all).

What splendid fun! And mighty craic!

The Kingdom. And Limerick.

Lights up. Breathe in. And speak. Half an hour earlier we had been standing outside St. John's in Listowel waiting for The Crowd from Dublin (aka Sunday Miscellany) to vacate the premises so we could start getting in our set. Our clothes rack was leaning at an angle between a jeep and the church wall, blown over by a mischievous 'breeze'. The steeple clock ticked on. We warmed up by getting giddy. There was no time to be nervous. Once we got the all clear, Diva One charged in with her drill, like a gunslinger into a Western Saloon. Divas Two and Three attended to the soft furnishings. Tara took to the lighting box. The lights went up (holy *@#!, a full house!) and the show went on. Afterwards, we walked around town, delighted to be recognised and praised. We were famous for the afternoon. For the whole afternoon!

Tara got news that weekend that she had won the PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Award for her play Grenades. A pity she was sitting on the bus to Galway and we were still in Kerry...

Then to Limerick, The Loft at the Locke Bar. A lovely venue not long open and run by Bottom Dog who were unfailingly helpful and kind. They're bringing their show Language Unbecoming a Lady to Galway later this year. Driving up and down between Galway and Limerick for the week, we became well accquainted with the traffic lights in Gort, the schizoid road that twists as far as Ballyline then runs straight as a die, the smack of a zillion bugs on the windscreen: summertime juice.

It was the week of 'the cough'. Not the audiences' but ours. There were three occasions of eye-popping, throat-hocking, voice-cracking coughing fits. There was even a nosebleed, though thankfully that was concealed behind a costume. Limerick audiences were wonderful though, and when they knew the actor was in trouble, they became even nicer, willing us to breathe, to make it to the end of the line. Thank you, Limerick! Thank you, Bottom Dog!

We're Back! and then we're off again.

Well, all things considered, that wasn't too bad: the guts of a thousand miles there and back, the heart-stopping lane-jumping of six squillion motor vehicles, the charming young lady, inches from our bumper in her Ford Ka, her middle finger proudly displayed ... Not too bad at all. We highly recommend Stafford Services, somewhere off the M6. But we cannot say the same for Stratford on Avon, which we made a detour to on the way back. Don't bother. Read the plays. Or go to them. Or learn them all off. Backwards. But don't go to Stratford.

Brighton, they said, was just like Galway. On steroids, they forgot to add. It does have the sea air. But more than a prom...it has a pier. Such a pier! Seagulls patrol like a private security firm. They take payment in chips. Or your finger. We bought ice-cream. We nearly won a cuddly toy.

And we did a play. The first show had a bone chilling audience - not a titter, not a chuckle. But neither did they squirm or yawn. THEY JUST SAT THERE!! Was this what English audiences did? we wondered. The post(show)mortem went on for hours. If audiences ever knew they are the watched as much as the watchers...But for the three remaining evenings the audiences were much warmer. We put the first show chilliness down to the presence of five reviewers, who had surely spread their malign influence through the crowd!

The two shows of note that we saw (we tried to get into dreamthinkspeak's Before I Sleep, but no luck) were Nobody's Home by Theatre Temoin and the moment i saw you i knew i could love you by Curious. That, of course, is the other reason to get to festivals, to see shows you wouldn't otherwise, to be influenced, to be provoked into thought, to be challenged.

We're off to Kerry for the Listowel Writers' Week on the 3rd June. Then, on the 7th June, we're travelling up the road to Limerick, for evening shows in the Loft at the Locke Bar until the 13th June.

Husbands, Hats and Grants

'Husbands and Hats - A Revival of Two Classic Plays' went on at Lunchtime Theatre @ Kelly's Bar from the 19th to the 21st April, followed by a speedy reprise the following week at Lunchtime Theatre's Lucky Dip of Theatrical Delights. Audiences liked it and we'll add a bit more spit n polish for another outing in the near future.

So husbands and hats there are aplenty, but grants, alas, are none. We applied to Culture Ireland for funds to take ourselves off to Brighton, where we are performing The World's Wife (yay!) next week. In feedback, CI told us we were unsuccessful because the Brighton Festival Fringe is uncurated and that Irish companies that have performed there found it difficult to attract audiences. So we're off on a wing and a prayer (a van and a ferry actually) and doubters be damned!

Then...the biggie. Arts Council Project Awards. We scoured the application guidelines, we had online-submission-technological-nervous-breakdowns, we had last minute dashes across Dublin with vital letters of recommendation. We had no luck. But we sleep easy, knowing we put in the best application we could have and that there are reasons decisions are made that have nothing to do with us, and everything to do with resources, regional balances and...oh, some other R word, like recession or something.

So now that the fanstastic project has gone the way of all flesh before ever it was made flesh, we have the time and space (if not the money) to consider other plans...and make other grant applications. We'll keep you posted...

Lunchtime Theatre @ Kelly's Bar

Mephisto went along to the launch of Lunchtime Theatre @ Kelly's Bar today. What fun! There was wine and nibbles, photo ops and costumes. Noelene Kavanagh of Macnas cut the metaphorical ribbon, we did a bit of The World's Wife to entertain the masses, and John Rogers did a turn as well. The venue is a little gem for theatre, with the loveliest stage looking out over all the tables where the folks will sit and slurp their soup while we all trip the light fantastic. Can't wait!

Lunchtime Theatre @ Kelly's Bar starts next week with Waterdonkey Theatre Company's production of two short plays. We're on the 19th, 20th and 21st April with 'Husbands and Hats' - a revival of two classic plays.

Tickets are just five euro.

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/23043

The World's Wife

We opened in the Town Hall Studio last night with The World's Wife, our stage adaptation of the poetry book by Carol Ann Duffy. We've brought this show to venues from Kiltimagh to Electric Picnic and we're still finding new approaches, nuances and balances. Aside from a few technical hitches (who left that knickers on the stage?!) one costume malfunction (a snug dress becoming snugger - ahem!) and some line flubs (two bells called Josephine, anyone?) the show went well before a good house. What more can an actress ask for?
And we do it all again tonight, and every night till Saturday.

'A three woman show of wittily revisionist monologues, the production has it all: humour, horror and pathos thanks to an exuberant ensemble cast who don't miss any of Duffy's deft beats...This true ensemble's use of space, props and dramatic timing (is) exceptional' 5 Stars - Metro