Open Auditions, Carlow 5th, 6th and 7th of April 2024
We’re delighted to be bringing our unique brand of community theatre to Carlow Arts Festival this year and are inviting you to be part of it.
How do you fancy joining a community Meitheal and be a part of Carlow's history? Ah go on…
*it's just... an alternative kind of history... of a Carlow in another universe ... which may or may not lie just a fractal away from this one...
or see below for more details…
We need adults, teens and children - everything from 8 to 88* year olds, for this peculiar promenade performance on the banks of the Barrow (*89 year olds will also be considered). Please note these are all unpaid roles for citizen performers / community cast only.
Adults:
With over 20 speaking parts for for all ages and genders, we're bound to have something for you. Sign up for our open auditions in early April, and show us what Carlow is made of. No experience necessary - just a willingness to bright, bold, and brilliant.
Children:
We also have one very special role for for an 8-10yr old girl, so we're on the hunt for the brightest future star of Barrow-side.
Yes, you heard me right. Do you own a rowing boat? What size is it? Does it float? Can you steer it without killing anyone?
Are you competent to join a community naval flotilla on the Barrow river at twilight for 4 nights, while disguised as a foreign invader?
Also, how do you feel about having fire on board?
Never mind, forget I asked the last bit...
Stage Management crew
No seriously, don't just stumble into this column folks - this is the coal face.
You don't need to have done it before, but this is the copped-on, roll up your sleeves territory, for folk who enjoy a challenge, and who know how to get stuff done. Without a song. or a dance.
(you possibly know who they are better than they do, so if you recognise them, go and show them this webpage. Now.)
Props
No, not those type. Literally - props. We need 8 or 10 relatively strong bodies to hold stuff up.
Are you fit enough to prop up a telegraph pole? Or roll a giant cable reel across a field?
(Don't worry, you won't have to do it on your own. At least not on all 4 nights of the show...)
Dogs Bodies
Not afraid of occasional bouts of hard work, and capable of shouldering a modicum of responsibility, and capable of helping to avoid public fatalities? Love to be involved in the craic, but would be pure mortified to have to sing, put on a costume or say anything out loud, ever? Dog bless us, no way?
Handy with a fire extinguisher?
Then your town Needs You!
(and full disclosure + spoiler alert: the title is far more honourable than it might seem)
Why are we doing this?
Since the first covid lockdown Medb & Dónal have been on a mission – to decarbonise our personal lives. It’s been a tricky road but we’re getting there.
We were a bit daunted by the idea of the entire country decarbonising our national grid by 2030. It seems impossible…
But then we thought about the Rural Electrification Scheme – the single biggest challenge undertaken by the state. In a post-war, still fledgling state we had neither the resources, nor infrastructure, nor suitably educated workforce to electrify the entire country.
But we did it anyway.
The project was driven not by profit motives, but by a notion of social solidarity and a greater good for society.
That’s the story we thought we’d be telling.
But of course we’re theatre people, with an unhealthy attraction to alternate realities, a streak of mischief, and we never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
First Light will not be a history play. But it is a chance for us to invite the people of Carlow to come play with us.
Together we’re going to make a show about electricity without much electricity. We’ll tell a story about division, through an act of solidarity. Together with some other local theatre makers - inc. co-director, Janice De Bróithe (SlapDash), Cian Kinsella (Lords of Strut), Deirdre Griffin (THISISPOPBABY) and writer/performer Shannon O’Doherty (Lambert’s Open Mic), we’re going to make an electrifying spectacle and we’d like you to be part of it.