La Reine Claude
Dublin Theatre Festival and The Irish Times’ collaborative writing project, in which 8 theatremakers continued a script begun by Tom Murphy and Enda Walsh over the course of the 2014 festival. I was 6th in the relay, with 36 hours to work with the text before passing it on again. The story centered around art-collector Mulcahy, his maid Karolina and her sister Paulina.
You can read about the experiment in this article from the Irish Times.
La Reine Claude was written by Tom Murphy, Enda Walsh, Deirdre Kinahan, Sonya Kelly, Stacey Gregg, Kate Heffernan, Bush Moukarzel, Brokentalkers, Genevieve Hulme-Beaman and Michael West. Rehearsed reading took place at Project Arts Centre, October 2014. Directed by Annabelle Comyn. Performed by Kate Stanley Brennan, Declan Conlon and Niamh McCann.
24 Hour Plays: Dublin
Six short plays written, rehearsed and staged in a day. This is 24 hour Plays: Dublin, an annual fundraising event in which Dublin’s performance community rally together to support the brilliant and crucial Dublin Youth Theatre. From 11pm until 5am, I shared desk, heart and head space with writers Róise Goan and Dylan Coburn Gray in a studio at Dublin Fringe LAB, as we each worked through the night on our own 10-minute script – handed over, for better or worse, at 6am.
Crouching Garda, Hidden Garda was my contribution. An investigation into disappearing costumes at our national theatre, it was replete with love triangles and tricorne hats, two too many costume changes, and about twelve too many police puns.
Peter Crawley from the Irish Times volunteered backstage for the marathon event and you can read his article here.
Crouching Garda, Hidden Garda as part of 24 Hour Plays: Dublin, Abbey Theatre, February 2015. Written by Kate Heffernan. Directed by Bairbre Ní Chaoimh, with assistant director Conor Murray. Performed by Glen Barry, Steve Blount, Dave Fleming and Marie Ruane. Production photos by Paul McCarthy. Poster design by Ste Murray.