Agent 160 in Belfast: Rehearsal Photos

Only 8 days until we go up in Belfast,  so we thought we'd give you a little sneak peek at rehearsals. 

October 23rd & 24th, Black Box, Belfast, 8pm, £8 

Tickets are available here.

Aislinn Clarke, (Directing Red Shoes By Sarah Grochala,  Nancy by Lisa Parry & Pantomime Horse by Ioanna Anderson)  chats to Alana Henderson during a Rehearsal for Red Shoes.

 Charmaine McBride during a rehearsal for How Do You Sleep At Night?' By Clare Duffy

 In rehearsal for Red Shoes

 Amanda Doherty & Charmaine Mc Bride rehearsing ' How Do You Sleep At Night?'

Monnine Dargan (Director of  The Last Word by Vittoria Cafolla, Skin by Morna Pearson & How Do You Sleep At Night? by Clare Duffy)  chats to Geoff Hatt  during a rehearsal of Skin.

  Amanda Doherty & Charmaine Mc Bride rehearsing ' How Do You Sleep At Night?

Geoff Hatt & Charmaine McBride rehearsing Morna Pearson's Skin

Agent 160 in Belfast: The Plays

Belfast Agent, Vittoria Cafolla, writes: 

It's starting to get hectic! 

As well as chatting and planning with Lisa, Dan and Louise in England,  I've been spending a lot of time this week with Sarah & Pete from the Black Box, working on, amongst other things:  tech plans, prop lists, publicity, and confirming the rest of our panel.  There has been a lot of interest from the theatrical community here on what Agent 160 do, and are planning to do, and it does seem that people are excited about seeing the shows, attending our panel and the writing workshop with Ioanna & Clare. (Which is nearly full, by the way- sign up here, if you want to attend!)

The directors are also hard at work,  and actors are to-ing and fro-ing between them. (We have 6 actors for 10 roles) It's quite exciting to hear what Moninne & Aislinn are planning, and I can't wait to sit in on a couple of rehearsals.  I think the plays will have a very different feel from the productions that we saw in London, Cardiff & Glasgow- both because we are using Northern Irish actors and -obviously- as no two theatre directors are going to have the same take or reading of a play. On a personal note,  this will be the first time I've had a play directed by two different directors, with different actors-I can't wait to find out what it will be like!

Having seen some of the plays staged while I was in London, and experienced how the audience reacted to each, I am also really looking forward to seeing Northern Irish audiences will react to the great pieces that we are doing. 

I just wish we could have done all the shows from the launch. 

So without further ago, here's our selection of Agent160 Presents plays for the Belfast Festival at Queen's....

 

Ioanna Anderson – How To Be A Pantomine Horse

In an air accident, the normal rules of human behaviour are suspended; people behave in unexpected and sometimes unpredictable ways. In this darkly funny, surreal and moving two-hander, an air crash throws two women into an impromptu but vital partnership.

Vittoria Cafolla – The Last Word

Paedar and Phoebe are in Pompeii, but are the city's ruins the only ones they're exploring? And just how important is it to have the final say in an argument? All is not as it seems when both compete to have the last word.

Clare Duffy – How Do You Sleep At Night?

For three years, Abi has been protesting outside the home of a retired chief executive of a zombie bank. But today, at 4am, the executive’s insomniac wife comes to make Abi an offer.

Sarah Grochala - Red Shoes

And it don’t matter that I ain’t had no tummy tuck caesarean, no postnatal Pilates. Cos I’m thinking it don’t matter what you got, you got it, when you got shoes like that.

Kaz has found the answer to all her problems, a pair of shoes, a pair of red Christian Louboutin shoes. If she has those shoes, she knows she can win her ex, Darren, back. All she needs now is the money to buy them or the guts to steal them.

One night in London when everything goes crazy, she finally gets her chance.

Lisa Parry - Nancy

Nancy lives in Sussex – the rural bit, not Brighton – and is in financial straits. But it’s not just the bank she needs to keep from her door; it’s the rabbits and moles too. But what has this to do with the audience? And why is she on the Agent 160 tour?

Morna Pearson – Skin; or How To Disappear

Robert hasn't left his house since Helen Daniels from Neighbours died. Having pulled out every hair on his body, he has started peeling off all of his skin. His day is interrupted by a visit from an incapacity benefit assessor. Somebody's life is about to change.

If you are going to be in and around Belfast on the 23rd & 24th October, you can buy tickets here. 

Agent 160 in Belfast: Casting

Amanda Doherty

Amanda recently graduated with a BA (Hons) Acting - Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
A young actress who has already worked with some of Northern Ireland's best known companies: as Elsie in Collecting Cultures for Kabosh), Pat in Operation Blitzed for Big Telly, Martius in Titus Andronicus for Inside of Out, Emer in Cromwell’s Tour of Ireland for the London Irish Theatre. Market Seller in Romeo & Juliet for the Stuttgart Ballet and as Annie Wobbler for the Derry playhouse. She has also had roles in The Fall for BBC TV, Tire Na Mac Tire for RTE/TG4 and as Agnes in Agnes (UTV with Ambient Light Productions) 

 Susan Davey 

Susan Davey trained in ballet before undertaking training at the Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin. She was also a member of the Lyric Theatre’s Drama Studio Company where she played in A Vampire Story.
Most recently, Susan performed in Playboy of the Western World (Lyric Theatre Belfast). Other theatre credits include: Marianne Dreams and Babble (Replay Theatre Company), A Christmas Carol (Wireless Mystery Theatre), Operation Blitzed (Big Telly), Of Fallen Sock and Fear (Accidental Theatre) and TIE work for Tinderbox Theatre Company. She performed in the Black Box’s Lunchtime Theatre earlier in the year.
Film and TV credits include a lead role in Fr. Brendan Smyth: Betrayal Of Trust (BBC), A Belfast Story (JoltMe – independent American feature), Mime and Lighthouse Keepers (NI Screen / Stirling Productions).
This year, Susan has recorded ‘Eveline’ for a walking tour of James Joyce’s Dubliners (Wonderland Theatre Company) for Dublin’s One City One Book festival.

Alana Henderson

In the summer of 2007 Alana took on her first major acting role as ‘Caroline’ in the ground-breaking & IFTA Nominated Irish-language drama-series ‘Seacht’ commissioned by TG4 and ILBF, which ran into its fourth series. In 2010 Alana was cast in the Irish-language radio plays series 'Nora', written by Gearoid MacUnfraidh and directed by Brian O'Tiomain, in which she played the part of Jackie, a young Mother left distraught by her partner's decision to go on hunger-strike.

She is also an accomplished classical cellist and played first desk cello with The Ulster Youth Orchestra. She is passionate about traditional singing and have an extensive repertoire of songs in English, Irish and Scots’ Gaelic. A traditional-singer, she has performed at festivals in Ireland, England and Scotland. She also writes and performs her own contemporary material and most recently performed on BBC ALBA’s ‘Horo Gheallaidh’ Series which was recorded at Celtic Connection festival, Glasgow in January 2012.

Geoff Hatt

(Since marriage in 2010. Previously Geoff Gatt)

Since graduating with a BA in English and Drama joint honours degree from Queens University, Geoff Hatt has fast become a familiar face on the Belfast musical and acting circuits.

Recently he has been working with Wireless Mystery Theatre both on 'Litarary Lunchimes' at The Ulster Hall and War of the Worlds for the Young at Art Childrens festival 2012. He also worked with YAA in their Performances In Schools programme with the play, The Butterfly and Caterpillar . 'Down in the Garden' written & Devised by Geoff & Catherine Hatt for Sticky Fingers Children's Theatre Company was a educational show for young children, which toured North and Southern Ireland twice in 2010. He starred as Ernest Hemingway (and other characters) in 'The Men of The HOUR' from Jan 2009 -Jan2011, a show that played to packed house in Belfast and had 2 successful runs in the Edinburgh Fringe festival 2009, 2010 & also in Belfast's 2011 Out To Lunch festival. Geoff played a human Ukulele playing flea in 'The Flea Pit ' for Cahoots NI 2007 as part of Belfast Festival and worked again with Cahoots Ni in 'The Bumble Bee Orchestra'. 'Hippos in the shower' was a self penned, original musical, first staged June 2005 OMAC Belfast, (and which went on to sell out performances in Empire Music Hall 2005, Cathedral Quarter Festival 2006 and Successful run in Edinburgh Fringe 2008) Geoff is also a talented musician, having released his first album, 'Ten Year Road' in 2009 to critical acclaim from magazines such as Hotpress and is currently completing his 2nd album with support from the Arts Council of Nothern Ireland.

Charmaine Mc Bride

Most Recently: Kath in ‘Present Haunts’ Directed by Bill Taylor as part of the Lunchbox Theatre in the Black Box Belfast, Battle of the Books’ as part of Literary Belfast for Belfast City Council , Lucy in ‘The Ex-Files’ Directed by Mary Lindsay for Skewiff Theatre Company as part of the Pick n Mix festival at the MAC Belfast, 'Sitting up for Michael’ Directed by Helen Donnelly as part of Accidental Theatres Biscuit Tin Readings ‘Who is it that can tell me who I am?’ Written and directed by herself, for Culture Night Belfast. Also: Alice in ‘The Water Clock’ Directed by Jack Geary and Danielle Barios. QFT, Jill Hewitt in ‘No Hope Hear’ Directed by Kevin Murray: Feile an phobail, Miss Know in ‘Mastermind’ Directed by Richard Lavery for: Accidental Theatre. V-DAY campaign, ‘Memory, Monologue, a Rant or a Prayer’ at the Black Box, Belfast, ‘Inner Space’ - (devised movement piece) Directed by David Calvert: KIC theatre company , Susan in ‘Five Minutes Of Silence’ Directed by Rachel Donnelly, Patricia in ‘Sharla Evans’ – a reimagining of the play ‘Rum & Vodka' by Conor Macpherson directed by Patrick Hughes: She starred as Super Numery in West End production of ‘EVITA’ in the Opera House Belfast. She has also acted in several local short films.

Rachael McCabe

Recent acting Experience: Performance Poet, Bronte Homeland, European Heritage Open Day, Margaret/Friar “Much Ado About Nothing”, Ruff Theatre Co., Crescent Arts Theatre, “The Golden Point and Beyond” by Peter Morgan-Barnes, Ballymoney Borough Council, Actor/writer, “Whatever Happened to Those Who Can’t?” TWC, Belfast, “The Wireless Room”, Wireless Mystery Theatre, Writer/ Actor, “A Beginner’s Guide To David Lynch”, TWC, QFT, “Alf Elf”, Hansel and Gretel Tour, c21 Theatre Company, Writer/ Actor “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”, Those Who Can’t, Belfast, Deviser/Actor on“They Do It With Beards”, Those Who Can’t, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Actor/Deviser “Leave It Out!”, Replay Productions, Belfast, Head Chaperone, “Eight”, Casterton School, Cumbria, England, YMT:UK, “Banzai Chess” Devisor/Performer, Young At Art Festival, Writer/ Actor “They Do It With Beards”, Those Who Can’t, Belfast, and as Facilitator/ Composer, for “Theatre In The Dark”, Big Telly Theatre Co., Portstewart.

Rachael also often works as a devisor & performer for the Beat Carnival, Belfast, as a Tutor, for Bruiser Theatre Company Summer Schools, Belfast and UU Coleraine, St Genevieve’s High School, as well as running Cross Community workshop days, with The Riverside theatre, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Glencairn and Frank Gillen centre youth groups, New Belfast Community Arts Initiative. Rachael hass also been working as an Arts facilitator since 2006, for (amongst others :Galaxy Drama Clubs, Shankill Nursery Project, New Belfast Community Arts Initiative and Young At Art, Grand Opera House Youth group and Opera Theatre Company.

She also holds a BA in English Language and Literature, from Oxford and a MA in English Literature, from The University of Sussex at Brighton.

Agent 160 in Belfast: Directors

Aislinn Clarke

Aislinn Clarke is a writer/director based in Belfast. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Northern Ireland's only audio theatre company Wireless Mystery Theatre and has also recently founded Fickle Favours, a platform company for female writers, actors, and directors in theatre. Aislinn also freelances as a writer, director, script editor, and filmmaker. She has directed a total of 15 short films, documentaries, and musical video inserts. Her work has been broadcast on BBC, UTV, and RTE. Aislinn's most recent film, The Lighthouse Keepers, was funded by NI Screen and produced by Stirling TV. It will be released later this month. She has also directed work for radio that has been broadcast on BBC Ulster, BBC Scotland, RTE, as well as on Radio stations in Leeds, Southampton, Nova Scotia, and Atlanta. Aislinn has directed extensively for the stage, working with pre-existing work as well as her own work, adaptations and new commissions. Her work has been on the main stages of Belfast's Grand Opera House, The Lyric Theatre, The Ulster Hall, as well as in arts centres, theatres, and festivals all across Ireland. Wireless Mystery Theatre have also had a 4* star run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and have performed by request at Stormont Parliament Buildings and with such writers as Carlo Gebler and Ciaran Carson. Aislinn also does the odd turn as an actress herself if the situation calls for it.

Moninne Dargan

Moninne Dargan is a co-founding member of Belfast’s respected, female led, skewiff theatre company. Moninne most recently directed 'Who Pulls the Strings?' a piece devised with a group of volunteer performers for Friends of the Earth on Culture Night, Belfast. She was one of the inaugural directors for Lunchbox Theatre Company, directing Myra Dryden's Out Of My Head, and previously directed skewiff’s production of Gary Owen's The Drowned World which the company took on tour. Moninne is a freelance workshop facilitator and freelance drama tutor; previous projects have included working in schools for Replay theatre company and with women’s and community groups. Moninne is also an accomplished actress and has acted in (amongst others) Vittoria Cafolla's The Ex Files (rehearsed reading MAC), Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, (Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival) Shannon Yee's Hatch, Cafolla's The Waiting Room, (Belfast Fringe) Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio, (Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival) David Robson's A Few Small Repairs, and Lee Blessing 's Eleemosynary, (Old Museum Arts Centre). She has a particular interest in the Michael Chekhov technique and continues to train with Jorg Andrees (Dublin and Berlin).

Agent 160 in Belfast ...the story so far...

Vittoria Cafolla Writes:

I'm proud to be a part of Agent160. I feel there is a real need for this company's existence. (Why? see here) I have been talking a lot with theatre people over here, about the insanity that is the 17% figure. (In case this is your first time reading this blog- Only 17% of the work produced in the UK on our stages is by women. Crazy, especially since women make up over half of the theatre going population AND the population as a whole.)

Not only that, but there has also been much talk recently about this and in the US, people doing this:

It seems like there might be a bit of a revolution going on.

It feels like people are starting to notice.

Getting this show on the road has been, well interesting to say the least. We were lucky a while ago to get some funding from Belfast City Council. We have been welcomed by the Black Box, and given an amazing amount of in-kind help by them. Belfast Festival at Queen's gave us some money as well. In the meeting I had with the Festival they told me they are very excited by the companies ethos, the writers, the workshop and the panel we have set up, (By the way, Hanna from Tinderbox rocks)

We’ve loyal directors, stage hands & soundmen all on board for the love of the idea behind the company, and the great plays that they have to play with. Including work from Ioanna Anderson,Vittoria Cafolla, Clare Duffy, Sarah Grochala, Lisa Parry and Morna Pearson. We put out a casting call and had to add 3 hours of extra slots, as demand for auditions was so high.

And it came to me that we were very lucky to have so much support. I feel like this has been a long time coming, but that it's right. That our time is not only now, but that if we help make a dent in that 17% figure, it'll not only be for us, but for all the new female writers coming up.

We have been fund-raising here: At the moment, we are around £500 off our target, with less than a week to go.

Thank you so much to everyone who has added to the pot so far: some of you don't even live in Belfast, or will see the shows. It's incredible. Two of you are anonymous, again, thank you! Its hard to express how grateful we are. We are not quite there yet: we would love if you could support us with even a quid! If you do (I really hope that this doesn't sound patronizing)

I just hope that you realise, that when you donate, you are playing a role in helping us, as a company, to get that 17% figure up. And I'm hoping it gives you the same fuzzy glow and sense of pride, that it gives us.

Please, please, please help get us to Belfast.

UPCOMING WORK (BELFAST)

Agent 160 is presenting a selection of plays from the February launch show in association with The Black Box and Lunch Box Theatre as part of the 50th Belfast Festival at Queens. Details - including workshop details with Agent 160 writers and information regarding a panel discussion- are below. Click here to book.
Agent 160 Presents Agent 160
Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th October 2012
At the Black Box Belfast
Written by
Ioanna Anderson, Vittoria Cafolla, Clare Duffy, Sarah Grochala, Lisa Parry & Morna Pearson.
7.30pm £8
Workshop
How to perform being a female playwright.
This workshop will unpack what we think, assume, hope and fear being a woman and a playwright is and creatively explore the tricky, fruitful and sometimes paradoxical relationship between the two. We'll ask: 'If you are a woman who writes, how do you feel about being a 'female playwright'?
With Agent 160 Writers, Ioanna Anderson & Clare Duffy
Thursday 25th October 10-12pm Black Box- FREE- limited availability. Please contact vittoria@agent160theatre.co.uk to book your place
Panel
Female Writers in the Irish Theatrical Landscape

A Panel and Question and Answer session discussing the Irish theatrical landscape with regards to female writers. With Hanna Slattne (Tinderbox,Belfast) Suzanne Bell (The Royal Exchange,London) Richard Lavery (Accidental Theatre Company, Belfast) & more to be confirmed.
Thursday 25th October 1-2pm Black Box- FREE

Writing anything we want

Hello everyone, it's Samantha Ellis here again, and this is about an event I did last week about women in theatre.

It was organised by The W Project, set up by Teo Connor and Loren Platt to celebrate and empower women in the creative industries—their wonderful blog is full of inspirational women. It was a post show event for Eugene O’Neill’s expressionist play The Hairy Ape at the Southwark Playhouse, and director Kate Budgen, filmmaker Elisha Smith-Leverock (who made the play’s excellent trailer) and I began by telling our stories of becoming and being women artists.

A couple of themes kept recurring. One was confidence, and whether women might be held back because (generalising wildly here) men tend to be more confident. I definitely have to steel myself to speak in workshops or rehearsals, to ask for what I want, to think of myself unapologetically as an artist, and (worst of all) to pitch. That’s one of the reasons I love being a founder member of Agent 160, where one of our core aims is to be mutually supportive, and where I feel part of a creative community.

We also talked about what women make art about—whether we are encouraged to make work from our own experience while men can write from outside theirs, whether our work is seen as marginal and subjective while men’s is universal and objective. The very first play I (co-)wrote, in a freshers’ festival at university, came about because two men said they needed a woman to “write the girls”. I owe them a massive debt for introducing me to theatre (if they hadn’t, I’d still be trying and failing to be Sylvia Plath) but I also wish I’d said “yes, but let’s all write all the characters".

Since then, my characters have included: a tree-sitter, thenovelist Joseph Roth, a fashion photographer puppet, an East Anglian wolf biologist, Gertrude Bell, a Plaistow boxer, a doubting rabbi, a Moldovan belly dancer, a grasping brothel madam, aninsomniac Shah.... I could go on. I have written about Iraqis, and Jews, and people with seizures, and women, and people who live in north London, and people who fancy the wrong kind of men, yes, so I have drawn on my own experience, but I poured just as much of myself into writing the insomniac Shah because that’s what writing is: an act of creative empathy.

When I told people I was doing an event on women and theatre after The Hairy Ape, they all asked why. The testosterone-fuelled play, with a mainly-male cast, and a key scene where they sweat it out in the hellish stokehole of a transatlantic liner, seemed an odd counterpart to an event about women. But as we sat on the stage and talked, it started to seem a really radical choice. If women can direct plays like this (and with the guts and energy Kate Budgen gave it) we must be getting somewhere.