After a long night and day of writing, rants, realisations and finally rehearsals in the Lyric we staged four new mini-plays from our Fast & Loose writers and teams. A huge thank you to everyone who was a part of this mad project and another thank you to everyone who came to the one-off sell-out performance. With special thanks to the team and staff at the Lyric Theatre for working with us.
Fast & Loose is a twenty-four hour play project which originated in Los Angeles with Sacred Fools Theater Company. A bold and often breathless experiment in playmaking and inspiring creativity, all housed in the Lyric Theatre for twenty-four hours. From 9pm on November 8th, four playwrights had only 12 hours to craft a new short play. At 9am the following day four directors and casts had a further 12 hours to rehearse the plays, which were premiered that night in the Lyric's Naughton Studio. Drama doesn't come any fresher.
The results are often unpredictable, unique and uplifting, showcasing some of the finest theatre and creative artists working in Northern Ireland.
Fast & Loose 2013
Lyric Theatre, Naughton Studio
Saturday 9th November 2013
The Wish
by Mark Kavanagh
Directed by Tony Devlin
Assistant: Teresa Hill
Cast: Cathy Brennan-Bradley (Eleanor), Jenna Byrne (Francie) & Morgaine FitzSymons (Nat)
Frankenstein's Daemon - Further Tragedies and the Final Resolve
by Andrea Montgomery
Directed by Leonie McDonagh
Assistant: Noel Griffin
Cast: Elaine Duncan (Mary), Mary Jordan (Harriet), Conor Maguire (Percy) & Cillian O'Sullivan (Daemon)
Hatch
by Fionnuala Kennedy
Directed by Janice Kernoghan
Assistant: Andrew Gray
Cast: Stephen Clarke (Conor), Rachael McCabe (Mother) & Jason McLaughlin (Liam)
Boat
by Jan Carson
Directed by Jason Parkes
Assistant: Jackie O'Hagan
Cast: Shaun Blaney (Pete) & Miche Doherty (Dirp)
Dramaturg Emily DeDakis
Producer Richard Lavery
Marketing Elizabeth Meehan
Stage Manager Jackie O'Hagan
Deputy Stage Manager Teresa Hill
About the 2013 Writers
JAN CARSON is a writer and community arts development officer currently based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has a BA in English Literature from Queen’s University Belfast and an MLitt. in Theology and Contemporary Culture from St. Andrew’s University, Scotland. She has previously lived and worked in Oregon, Colorado and London. Jan has had several short stories published in literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic and has recently read her work at the Irish Writers’ Centre in Dublin. She also has experience in screenplay writing and writing for radio and theatre. Her first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, is due for publication in Spring 2014.
MARK KAVANAGH hales from Donegal but lives in London. He studied acting at LAMDA and has appeared in productions in London and Ireland. He has written for years and indeed his first theatre experience was a one-act play he wrote called ‘Life from a Park Bench’ which showed at the Crescent Arts Centre in the nineties. Mark has written many plays, notably Wake and Mad North-North-West which he wrote, produced and acted in for the Camden Fringe in 2012/2013. Mark has just finished a new play, The Bob Anomaly, and is working on a sitcom, Stalled, with writer/comedian Elliott Tiney.
FIONNUALA KENNEDY is a writer and director from Belfast, and currently the Production Assistant for Kabosh. For Kabosh, she has co-directed Wonderwall, Collecting Cultures and Shankill Stories. She has written two plays: Hostel (2010) and recently Love for Sale for the 2013 Belfast Book Festival. Most recently she directed Damian Kearney’s Down on the Main Road for the 2013 Accidental Theatre Biscuit Tin Reading series.
ANDREA MONTGOMERY has directed over 30 productions and has worked in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Iran, Greenland, China, France, Bulgaria & Slovakia. She was CEO of the Palace Theatre (Westcliff), AD of the Riverside Theatre (Coleraine), and a founder member of the producing consortium ART NI. She came late to writing, but has had seven plays staged and comedy produced by the BBC. Her play ALL AT ONCE I SAW A CROWD was short-listed for the Nick Darke Award 2012. Early this year she was writer in residence at the Gateway Theatre, Vancouver, and worked on CROWD with the National Theatre of Greenland.
