By Kevin Donnellan
THEATREclub are an up-and-coming theatre group comprised of Shane Byrne, Doireann Cody and Grace Dyas. Their award winning show ‘HEROIN’ comes to axis, Ballymun for a three night run begining tomorrow. We caught up with the show’s producer Shane before opening night.
So the three of you came together in November 2008, how?
We were all members of Dublin Youth Theatre for years and that’s where we met. For most of our time in DYT the Artistic Director was Willie White. (Also Artistic Director of Project Arts Centre.) He exposed us to lots of different forms of theatre form Europe and around the world and new forms and shows that leaned more towards the experimental were always something we found ourselves interested in.
When we were more senior members we were encouraged to start making our own work. We’d all performed in plays in DYT before but now we had the chance to create something new ourselves. Most notably DYT had the opportunity to stage a piece in Dublin Fringe Festival. We each had our own 15 minute piece as part of a wider project called We’re Not Real. Then within a few weeks we met up in a Portobello pub and talked about the future. THEATREclub was born.
Do you all have set roles or does everyone pitch in with writing/directing/promoting?
We don’t have particular set roles. We are very much a collective and we decide on the direction of the company together. Having staged so many productions now we’ve learned where our individual strengths lie and we are able use our specific skills sets to our advantage.
Obviously we all have all found certain things that we enjoy and that we are good at but the roles could change at any time. For example, I’m producing this time, which is my first time. But because of Grace having produced before a number of times, I have picked up a lot from what she has done before and that same principle applies in every aspect of what we do.
Tell us a bit about HEROIN? How did the piece come about?
HEROIN was actually the first show we decided to make. We knew it wouldn’t be our first show but we knew it was a conversation we wanted to have with an audience. We thought about it first in January 2009 but it wasn’t actually staged until nearly two years later.
We received a small development grant from The Artist In The Community scheme from The Arts Council and we began researching. A lot of this took place in the Rialto Comunity Drug Team. We would call in during clinic times and meet with some of the clients and we chatted to them about heroin itself and about their history with Heroin. We worked also with a few other different projects that dealt with addiction.
Over time Grace built up a strong relationship with The Drug Team and started to work with a Young Men’s Group. They were a group that already met in Rialto and Grace approached them about her show. She started off by doing drama workshops with them once a week and they told Grace that they had the idea to make a play of their own about street language and the way people would talk to avoid being detected by the Gardaí etc. So Grace and the men’s group made an agreement that she would help them with her play if they helped her with hers.
They would come to rehearsals for HEROIN and give their feedback and even started to direct the actors at certain points. They talked to them about HEROIN and told them about their own real life experinces and how they related the show.
You won the Spirit of the Fringe award, that must have been a big boost? Any plans to bring the show abroad?
It was a surprise more than a boost! People always say that about awards but we really were not expecting it. So it was extra special to win. It’s really nice to be considered amongst all the previous winners and also HEROIN was a really big production for us so it was great to be recognised in that way.
We’d love to tour the show abroad and we have had a few conversations along those lines but it’s a huge undertaking to bring a show overseas. It’s also very expensive so HEROIN will be staying in Ireland for the time being.
Also we’re delighted to present HEROIN in axis Ballymun. The conversations we are having out here about the show are fantastic and the feedback from the people from the area has been really positive. It’s great to see strong support from the local people.
What are the plans for the future. Presumably you’ll be bringing something to this years Dublin Fringe?
Well at the moment we are in development with a few new things. We have a project called Twenty-Ten which has been created by sending an email to about 60 people every single day in 2010 asking them “What had they learned?”. So obviously we have a mammoth amount of responses from that. They will make up the body of the show and we’re actually really excited about that one. We like it a lot.
We will be back at ABSOLUT Fringe this year but as always we have to remain pretty tight lipped about our plans. The theme of the festival this year is A Brave New World. So if any of your readers are looking to theatre for something new then they should start with the Fringe Festival. There is always a load of great stuff on and there is something to suit everyone. It’s a very audience friendly festival shall we say!
This is meg’s first foray into theatre coverage. Do you think anything can be done to bring in a younger audience?
We jumped on the chance to have new people engage with what we were doing. A huge part of what THEATREclub is all about is bringing in new audiences. Of any age. From our experience with young people there is a certain image of what people think theatre is. Theatre has this old fashioned image of it being something for old people, something really “upper class” and generally that it’s not for young people.
The message we’d love to spread is that Theatre is changing and that the work that you can see now is really accessible and actually something that younger audiences would enjoy. I mean there is actually a lot of cool stuff goin on that people may not have seen before. It’s never too expensive and there is a lot of it.
The younger audiences are coming. Slowly but they’re coming. We curate and run a festival in Project Arts Centre called The Theatre Machine Turns You On. It’s new work from New artists. It sold nearly every ticket. And with fifteen shows in one week it’s quite an achievement. Each of them have their own draw on new audiences so new people are coming to the theatre. It’s a huge buzz for us to see new faces in the foyer.
Also we’re delighted that we get to be part of Meg.ie’s first foray!
Booking Information:
Dates: 24th to 26th March 2011
Matinee: 25th March 2011
Time: 8.00pm (matinee 3pm)
Tickets: €15/€12
Booking: +353 1 883 2100 www.axis-ballymun.ie
