Notions : Theatre – Meet the Playwrights

 

We’re one day out from our REPRESENT theatre event as part of Notions Festival, and as a warm-up we would like you to meet the wonderful theatre artists that will be presenting work! Scroll down to get to know them and their work, and come experience their writing tomorrow night from 7 to 9pm in Teach Solais on Merchant’s Road! The event aims to showcase characters and narratives that do not often make it to Irish stages, so you can expect an interesting and thought provoking night of theatre! But without further delay, say hello to our playwrights!

 

Johanne Webb

This is the first piece of solo writing of Johanne’s that’s made it from a dusty drawer to an audience’s ears. She is a performer, mother, Family Constellations facilitator, director, and caterpillar writer. She trained at the Manchester Metropolitan University (Capitol Theatre) and University of Winchester.

For The Love of the Child
 is the beginning of a play about modern, real life parenting, sex and dirty nappies. It looks at how easy it is in the trenches at 3am with a screaming child to fall madly out of love without even realising it. And how easy it is to be deeply, madly, misunderstood.

Theatre credits include Assistant Director  A Damsel In Distress  for Chichester Festival Theatre(2015),Assistant Director for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (rehearsed reading. Grand Canal). Performance Director for Symphony for the Restless (Macnas); Director/Producer for  MJ Christmas Show(K4love Arts Centre, Kenya) and Caged Birds (National Theatre, Nairobi) Filming/Editing for The World’s Wife; Creator of Lost (children’s mime show. Tour). Johanne is currently devising two shows around the themes of motherhood, race  and refugees, and is a proud of member of MAMs (Mother Artists Makers).

Acting credits include She in How to Stop the Sea(GTF 2017), Cockroach in Macnas Cockroach Show, Interferance in The World’s Wife (Maison Foo, international tour), Mother in Lost (Neutral Space), Arabella in the London Cuckolds, Ludovina in Divine Worlds, Beth in Merrily We Roll Along, Moll in Moll Flanders  and Mrs Loveitt in The Man of Mode (Capitol Theatre).

 

 
Hanahazukashi Mai

Hanahazukashi is an English teacher and sometimes writer.  Kashi has written, directed, and acted in scores of plays in Texas, Milwaukee and Japan.  She has written several educational plays for youth, including her UCD graduate thesis “As Clean as a Split Bamboo” which explains the history of Japan from the Tokugawa period to present day through drama.  She is part of Crannóg’s writing group, where she is currently workshopping a bildungsroman, “Self-Diagnosis” which describes and dissects her encounters with Catholicism, morality, self-harm, identity, and being multi-ethnic on the Texan border.
Kashi is a founding member of Cosáin: Community Wellness, a peer-support group in Galway which operates out of Teach Solais with weekly therapies on Sunday and a drop-in session Wednesday evenings.

Her play, Locked Away, is an adapted chapter from her novel “Self Diagnosis” which describes her first experience dealing with mental health services in the States.  With “Locked Away” she’d like to call attention to moments of insecurity and doubt, and assure those who might be experiencing crises that questioning the worth and purpose of life is not an incarcerable offense.

 

 

Jérémie Cyr-Cooke


Born and raised in Ottawa, Jérémie is a physical performer and theatre-maker who trained in the three-year intensive programme of “Acting For The Stage” at the Ottawa Theatre School. He completed his MA at NUIG researching physical theatre in text-based solo performance. He has a particular interest in devised theatre and exploring new ways to tell our (hi)stories, often using the body as the prime communicator, while focusing on social issues. A lot of his work has an undertone revolving around themes of languages and history.

 
Most recently, he finished a small-tour of his one man show, Blood On The Moon, and was also choreographer to Dun na mBan Trí Thíne with An Taibhdhearc at the Galway Int’l Arts Festival. 
 
 Invisible is the story of Théo, a young boy who lives alone in a suburban park, as he tries to survive the war against the ones he calls “The Creatures”, alongside his army of ants. With their help, he wants to complete the job the police never could, and solve the disappearence of his sister. Invisible is for the children who fade away in the background, under mountains of paper and bureaucratic systems – it is for those who were forced to leave their family, and escape in a world of their own.

Elizabeth Flaherty
Elizabeth is a local Galway Girl, actress, writer and director. She has been acting and performing for over 10 years, initially studying Acting and Theatre Performance in Galway Community College, followed by studying Advanced Acting and Musical Theatre with Bull Alley Theatre Company based in Dublin. She has an Associate Diploma in Performing Speech and Drama from Trinity College London.

 

Elizabeth has performed in many musicals, plays and films. Some of her theatre credits include Kate in ‘That Same Old Story’. Prince Edward in ‘Henry VI Part III’, Peg in ‘The Way of the World’ and Felicity Cunningham in ‘The Real Inspector Hound’. She has performed with Macnas, NoRopes Theatre Company, Meaney Productions, Espresso Productions, Waking the Feminists West, City Morgue Films, CATAGOGO Collective and numerous musical societies.  She also starred in two plays as part of Where We Are Now Festival (The North West of ‘s first LGBT+ Theatre Festival)  And she was the leading lady in Eva’s Echo Theatre Company’s first production ‘Match’, as part of the Galway Fringe Festival which won the Fringe award for Emerging Artist.

She has recently directed ‘First Dates’ with Amigo Productions in the Town Hall Theatre. She also directed and starred in a children’s Theatre Production over the summer ‘Longwing and June’ with the Galway Fringe Festival.

She is a longstanding member of The Theatre Room Galway and worked on a number of productions as an actor, writer and director. She is currently on the Theatre Room Committee as their PR Officer.

Her script for REPRESENT, Joie De Vivreis about a group of girls. It deals with one girl who is in a dark place and her friends who try to cheer her up and remind her about the joys of life.

 

 

Mairéad Folan

Mairéad is the Artistic Director of Galway-based theatre company NoRopes. Meet Luke is her debut as a playwright. She has been a bilingual freelance theatre practitioner since 2005.  Credits as Director: Wasted (NoRopes Theatre Company), Wasted – a work in progress (NoRopes Theatre Company/ Galway Theatre Festival), The Open Couple (NoRopes Theatre Company) (Dramsoc NUIG), Cocktails (Labyrinth Players/Project ’06), The Last Straw (Galway Theatre Festival 24 hour theatre). Credits as Assistant Director: Incubus, Gaeilgeoir Deireanach Charna, Áille agus Allta, Mamó Gé (Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe), Éistigí…Caithfear Éisteacht (Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe/Galway Arts Festival). Credits as Actor: Pléasc (Fíbín Teo.), The Vagina Monologues ( NUIG Feminist Soc/Dramsoc), Gun Metal Grey – rehearsed reading (Truman Town Theatre), This Means War!, Under Milkwood, Talking to Terrorists (Galway Youth Theatre/ Cúirt International Festival of Literature),  Heads (Galway Youth Theatre) and Cocktails (Labyrinth Players/Project ’06)
Come to REPRESENT to hear Meet LukeBorn in Dublin but pure Galwegian at heart, man about town and always gets stopped on shop street regardless of if he wants to or not. Man of few words until tonight! A once off opportunity to hear what he REALLY thinks. Not for the weak-hearted!

 
( Note: Post has been edited on 24 / 08 / 2020 on the request of one of the participants to have their information removed )