Five projects have been selected for the inaugural pilot scheme of The New Play Clinic. The pilot scheme will support the development of 5 projects in this initial phase, including NEUROPOLIS by Gary Duggan and Gavin Logue, SILENT by Ray Scannell, BRILLIANT by David Farrell, IN SKAGWAY by Karen Ardiff and STARMAN FISHER by Deirdre Roycroft. These projects will be developed through The New Play Clinic over the coming weeks and months ahead of production.
NEUROPOLIS
Devised and directed by Gary Duggan and Gavin Logue
About NEUROPOLIS: An amnesiac man awakes and attempts to uncover his lost identity. He journeys through a Dublin out of step with time, encountering fragments of his shattered memory and strangers who lead him astray… Mashing together elements of Beckett, Kafka and the Coen Brothers,NEUROPOLIS is a physical, visual and blackly comic Stage Noir.
BIOGRAPHIES:
Gary Duggan won the Stewart Parker Trust Award for his first play MONGED. He has written for Fishamble: The New Play Company, The Abbey Theatre, Bedrock, Origin Theatre New York and RTE Drama. In 2011 the Abbey will premiere a new play by Gary on the Peacock stage.
Gavin Logue trained as an actor in the now deceased Actor Training Programme in Trinity. Since graduating he has worked as a freelance actor, producer and director and has just completed Artstrain, an NAYD led Youth Drama Facilitating Programme.
WHAT GARY & GAVIN SAY:
“We are delighted to be part of the New Play Clinic as it provides invaluable guidance, support and extra credibility for this small, unfunded production.”
BRILLIANT
By David Farrell, in association with Granary, Cork.
About BRILLIANT:
Brilliant is a music-play, the story of Danny who grew up a working- class hero, who formed a very successful band, who toured the world, recorded top ten singles, was hyped and lauded in the music press and blew it all on heroin, crack and booze. “Now I’m grown up and its all dark and weird and little Danny is asking me for a dig out and I keep telling him to hang on a sec I’m really having a hard time minding big Danny so hang on there little Danny just wait there another twenty years on your own in the Dark in your pyjamas and your curly hair and alone and waiting for fucking someone to give me a hug in the dark.”
BIOGRAPHY:
Dave Farrell graduated from the Gaiety School of acting in June 2008. Since then he has appeared in several plays including Pool no water, The Woman who left herself, Once a catholic, Poet Laureate of the peoples republic of Cork and Danse macabre. Dave has also written two plays. He has just finished acting in his first feature film called Treekeeper which will be released in 2011. He set up a Film company, Urban Films in 2010 and is currently working on two film projects.
WHAT DAVID SAYS:
“The New Play Clinic could not have come along at abetter time for us. We have got so far with this project, but there are so many more events, characters and ideas we want to include in it – but it can’t be a five-hour play! So, we are hoping that the Clinic will help us hone in on what is important – dramaturgically and aesthetically/artistically in order for us to be truthful, in order for us to tell the tale succinctly and entertainingly; to ground us in the process of writing and exploring the story with performers. It is a great idea and we are lucky to be involved.”
SILENT
By Raymond Scannell
About SILENT:
Silent is a story about a Silent Film pianist who takes in his grief stricken Granddaughter Ellie. Ellie hasn’t spoken since a car accident that took her father. The play integrates Piano Score, Film and Theatre to create a hugely engaging piece of Theatre.
BIOGRAPHY:
Ray Scannell’s award winning plays (Judges Discretionary award ISDA 2000 ‘Breathing Water’, Best Male Performer Dublin Fringe Festival 2008 ‘Mimic’) have toured nationally and internationally (COIL Festival New York ‘Mimic’, Arizona State University ‘A Day in the Life of a Pencil’.) and reveal a passionate, innovative voice with a striking imagination.
WHAT RAYMOND SAYS:
“My hope is that the Play Clinic will provide the dramaturgical support to bring the play to it’s utmost potential. The space, facility, and expertise offered by the people at Fishamble will mean that Silent is given every opportunity to become the most professional, artistically realised production it can be.”
IN SKAGWAY
By Karen Ardiff in association with Gúna Nua
About IN SKAGWAY:
In Skagway the story of two Irish women and their experiences of emigration in America in the 19th Century. As related by four performers, In Skagway is the picaresque journey of the women from a famine ship, through the American civil war to the Gold Rush and the Klondike. It’s story of a friendship and a love that navigates hunger, poverty, alcoholism, illness, oceans and continents and emerges transformed and beautiful in the Alaskan wilderness.
BIOGRAPHY:
Karen Ardiff is a regular perfomer with Gúna Nua, The Abbey, The Gate and many other theatres around Ireland. She is also one of the finest new voices in Irish writing. Her debut novel The Secret of My Face was acclaimed by the critics. As Hugh Leonard put it writing in the Sunday Independent, ‘Karen Ardiff’s book is an astonishing debut. It is unpredictable and – towards the end shocking. I put it down in tears.’
WHAT KAREN SAYS:
“A three-day workshop on the play would give an opportunity to Karen and Gúna Nua to explore the feasibility of the theatrical ideas expressed in the text and to avail of Fishamble’s dramaturgical expertise.”
STARMAN FISHER
By Deirdre Roycroft
About STARMAN FISHER:
Starman Fisher is going to be a play exploring the current and future science of cloning, and the application of replication, with a little bit of wondering about our genes; how they’re made, where they’re going, and how they might get there.
BIOGRAPHY:
Deirdre Roycroft is an actress and theatremaker. She is a founder and creative producer of Project Brand New – an initiative to support the development of new work outside of traditional production models. Dee is also a Project Catalyst and recently received an Arts Council Project Award to support the development of a new piece called Starman Fisher.
WHAT DEIRDRE SAYS:
“I hope that the New Play Clinic will give me some experience of working with a dramaturg. I’d like to work out what to keep, what to discard, and have my ideas challenged – just a little.”
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