I am enormously grateful for the IPCCR grant that funded my trip to Dublin and London. It was an incredible gift to be able to reach beyond our borders for inspiration, collaboration and community. At the conclusion of this grant period, I have gained: research and inspiration for my next play, international connections with a possibility for future collaborations, and relationships with Irish theatre professionals which I am able to immediately bring back to our TDPS students.
The goals from my project, and how I have met them:
1. To do first-person research for my new play about the Irish diaspora, as inspired by my fathers emigration from Dublin: while in Dublin, my primary goal was to soak up the city by walking and wandering, so that I will be able to use it more truthfully as a setting for my new play. I also ingested as much history from the locals as I could, by visiting The Little Museum of Dublin and going on a literary walking tour. I also was able to visit for the first time many significant sites from my family’s heritage. For example, I visited the building where my great-grandfather worked in a tailor shop and the building where my great-grandmother worked in a restaurant. I was able to see, first person, how the two buildings faced each other across O’Connell Street, right near where Nelson’s Pillar used to stand, and could better picture how my great-grandfather first met his future wife during his lunch breaks. During all of this, I jotted down fragmentary ideas for my new play’s characters, theme and structure. Thanks to this IPCCR-funded trip, I now have a strong research foundation for the play, and I will begin to write it this summer.
2. To learn more about the new play development process in Dublin and London, and to further relationships with collaborators in those cities: I saw 8 new plays during my 9-day trip (please see list below), and each of them has inspired my work—either through their strengths or weaknesses. I was reminded that it is glaringly obvious when a production is not truthful or committed, and that the strongest plays are messy, honest, and performed with full-throttle intensity. Additionally, the buzzing community that each of these theatres has cultivated in their bar/restaurants both before and after performances reminded me that the most rewarding theatre is that which builds community. I also had the opportunity to meet with four top theatre professionals in Dublin: Selina Cartmell (Artistic Director of The Gate Theatre), Annabelle Comyn (Artistic Director of Hatch Theatre Co), Jesse Weaver (Literary Director of The Abbey) and Jim Culleton (Artistic Director of Fishamble Theatre Co). From those meetings, I gained a more in-depth view of the Dublin theatre community, including the current controversy over the Abbey’s new artistic leadership and slant towards foreign artists.