PRODUCTIONS
Graffiti was delighted to be on the road again with a van full of puppets as Jackie, an old favourite, befriended the 3-7 year olds of Cork. Jackie’s Day, by Sarah FitzGibbon, is a charming and gentle interactive play which investigates the small but significant problems of its central character and her friends. This year’s version played both in Irish and in English (with the same cast), and as well as travelling to schools we have also created a lovely environmental set within a tent in our own theatre.
We are also pleased to have secured the rights for The Shape of a Girl by Joan MacLeod, which will be available in October and November. This Canadian script has been a phenomenal hit world wide. Originally commissioned and produced by Green Thumb Theatre Company, it is not – as you might think – a play about female body-image but a spare, tightly written and beautiful piece of theatre which investigates in a very subtle way the concept of the gang, the excluder and the witness. What do we see – ‘A girl in the shape of a monster: a monster in the shape of a girl’? We’ve wanted to produce this play for several years and are really looking forward to working on it.
Meanwhile, development work continues on Walking Man by Jody O’Neill and on Blátha Bána/White Blossoms which is our new piece of Theatre for the Youngest. Walking Man will have a week’s development rehearsal in August and we hope to prepare it for full rehearsal and tour in the Spring. We hope to premiere Blátha Bána in Summer of 2011. It’s based on a myth . . . but that’s all we’re saying!
Emelie also recently directed a reading of another new commission. Where in the world is Frank Sparrow?, a dark new teenage play by Australian writer, Angela Betzien. This was at The Provincetown Playhouse in New York and was part of their season, New Plays for Young Audiences. It was the only transnational piece and its “gritty Marc O’Rowe meets The X Men” style created a lot of interest!
DRAMA PROJECT
After a successful pilot project, a new programme of curriculum drama workshops based on the Kindertransport story will be available to schools in the Autumn. The workshop places the participants (5th and 6th class students) in the role of Jewish children embarking on their train to safety before the Second World War. It aims to develop the empathy of the students and help them understand and respond to challenging moral dilemmas.
YOUTH THEATRES
In May, the Graffiti Theatre hosted Activate Youth Theatre’s new play, Myrtlehill Terrace, which used real documents form the 1911 census to inspire fictional stories of Cork people one hundred years ago. There is something extraordinary about seeing the original census forms. The handwriting is beautiful and the documents evoke images of a bygone era. They provided the fuel which fired the imagination of the Youth Theatre members. Devised by the Youth Theatre and directed by Geraldine O’Neill and Julie O’Leary, the play Myrtlehill Terrace played in the Graffiti Theatre on 7th and 8th May.
The younger Youth Theatres, the Fish Tank and Physically Phishies, invited parents and friends to observe a final workshop session at the end of the year.
PLAYOGRAPHY NEWS
Playography na Gaeilge was launched recently by the Irish Theatre Institute (supported by Foras na Gaeilge) and Graffiti plays an impressive role in the history of first productions as Gaeilge. ITI published a report of the research findings of the project and we were surprised by (and a little proud of!) some of the results. Graffiti began producing as Gaeilge in 1999 and is now the fourth most prolific producer of Irish language first productions still in existence – though Branar may soon take over that honour! In the period in question (1975-2009) Emelie FitzGibbon was the 7th busiest Irish language director in the country (as well as being on the top list for new plays in English for the same period). Meanwhile Síle Ní Bhroin was the 12th most prolific writer/translator with 5 newly translated plays for Graffiti in that time. Playography na Gaeilge is a wonderful new resource available at www.irishplayography.com
And with no less than five new scripts currently in development, we hope to continue to be featured on Playography – as Gaeilge agus as Béarla! No wonder we are looking forward to a few days off in the Summer!