Return of The Woolgatherer

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

FOLLOWING WIDESPREAD critical acclaim on its national tour earlier this year, ORion Productions, in association with Blue Moon Theatre Company, presents another opportunity to see The Woolgatherer.

Celebrate a Celtic birthday with Fíbín

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

VERCINGETORIX HAS gone down in history as the Gaullish leader who in 52BC led the uprising against Julian Caesar’s conquest of his country.

Auditions for The Producers

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

GALWEGIANS WHO would like a chance of starring in The Producers, the hilarious Mel Brooks comedy-musical can try out for auditions next week.

Win tickets to see Rush @ The Eye

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

RUSH, THE new film set during the golden age of Formula 1 racing, and starring Chris Hemsworth, will be shown in The Eye Cinema, Wellpark, on Wednesday September 11 at 7pm.

Actors sought for new production

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

HOURGLASS THEATRE Company will hold auditions for its new production Red Handed in the Galway Arts Centre from 11am to 2pm this Saturday.

Over The Edge Writers’ Gathering

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

OVER THE Edge will hold a writers gathering, with poets from Australia and Irish authors, in the Nuns’ Island Theatre on Friday September 13 at 8pm.

Clay and ceramics exhibition

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

ARTISTS FROM Denmark, France, and Ireland who work in clay and ceramics, will exhibit in The Niland Gallery, Merchants Road, this month.

Go Wilde for Oscar

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

GALWAY’S FIRST Oscar Wilde Festival, celebrating the work of one of Ireland’s greatest writers, takes place this Saturday and Sunday.

Poetry workshops @ GAC

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

POETRY WORKSHOPS for beginners, intermediate, and advanced, will be given by Galway poet Kevin Higgins in the Galway Arts Centre.

Pete Mullineaux’s acting classes

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

PETE MULLINEAUX’S popular acting classes resume in Galway Arts Centre, every Wednesday from 7pm to 8.30pm.

Theatre, TV, and music courses

Thu, Sep 05, 2013

IF YOU have ever wanted to see your own movie on the big screen or perfect your acting, check out new courses from Galway Community College.

TV and film students will make a documentary and short movie, which will be shown in The Eye Cinema at the end of the year. Students are also involved in the production of an internal bulletin GCC TV, together with practical placement on various movie sets throughout the year.

‘You become more human through failure’

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

Michael Harding is one of our best-known writers; author of 15 plays, three novels, and a regular column for The Irish Times. He has won a number of awards for his work, both as a writer and as an actor. His most recent book is Staring at Lakes, an unflinchingly candid account of a prolonged period of debilitating physical illness and depression which afflicted him in the winter of 2010 and well into the following year. But the book is not just a memoir of this illness; Harding writes with humour and honesty of his entire life’s path; his time as a priest, his marriage to sculptor Cathy Carman, remarkable encounters with Buddhist monks and ordinary Irish country-people, his inner restlessness, and his eventual finding of peace through acceptance of love and the importance of now.

Beyond Therapy with Orion’s Belt

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

Kinvara-based Orion’s Belt Theatre Company visit the Town Hall Studio next week with Christopher Durang’s terrific madcap comedy, Beyond Therapy. It is the second time the company have presented a Durang play, having staged the same author’s Baby With The Bathwater last year.

The Underground Sound @ Monroe’s Live

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

This evening, Monroe’s Live goes underground as it presents some of the best up-and-coming indie bands in the country with The Underground Sound.

The Underground Sound is a free night dedicated to promoting some of the rich musical talent Ireland has to offer.

Eclipsed (Mephisto Theatre Company)

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

It has been 21 years since its premiere but Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed has lost none of its power, as the fine new production from Mephisto Theatre Company, currently running at the Town Hall, amply demonstrates. It is also fitting that the play should be getting a major new production in the same year that the Magdalenes have finally got official State recognition via the McAleese Report and the Government decision to grant them compensation. In ways the play’s journey has paralleled that of the Magdalenes; Eclipsed was one of the very first works to alert the world to their story and its periodic revivals in the intervening years, both here and abroad, helped keep that story in the public eye.

Mephisto’s production is confidently directed by Niall Cleary and in Triona Lillis’s design of the laundry space it is telling that the only splash of bold colour is from the episcopal purple of the recently cleaned bishop’s robes, hung over a mannequin and serving as a mute yet vivid symbol of the Church’s male power structure and its condemnation of the Magdalenes. The first act illustrates the drudgery of the penitents’ daily routine but also highlights their camaraderie. There is plenty of humour and high spirits, such as when they dress up a mannequin as Elvis for a mock wedding with the star-struck Mandy (Siobhan Donnellan). The second act of the play is much darker as it moves toward a tragic climax and witnesses desperate attempts to escape, and equally desperate lashing out against the nuns who are their de-facto captors. Yet the play also points out how the nuns are also captives in their own way. If Mother Victoria (a nuanced performance from Caroline Donnellan) is the stern overseer of the laundry, she does what she does out of unquestioning loyalty to Church authority rather than innate sadism, she practises the blind obedience she frequently teaches. Notably, it is she who speaks the line “we are eclipsed” which gives the play its title. The younger Sister Virginia (Catherine Denning) speaks up for the Magdalenes and tries to help them but as the penitent Bridget bitterly points out to her her efforts are little more than tokenism and make no real difference to the women’s lot. Bridget (wonderfully played by Emma O’Grady) reminds us of Ken Kesey’s McMurphy from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, she is spirited, indomitable and not afraid to take on the nuns. Yet we also see that she is not merely an ‘angry young woman’ and that much of her motivation comes from the burning love she feels for her lost baby and her desire to be re-united with her child.

Lick My Stereo @ Halo

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

An exciting, lively, and energetic four piece band all the way from Roscommon, Galway regulars Lick My Stereo land on the Halo stage again tomorrow night.

Piercing music at Monroe’s Live

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

Foot-stomping Australian folksters The Pierce Brothers come to Monroe’s Live this Saturday.

Rab Fulton on The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

This year marks the birth of a new festival on Galway’s already bustling calendar; the Oscar Wilde Festival. The two day event is both a celebration of the famed writer’s life and works as well as a reminder of Wilde’s strong links to this city and the west of Ireland.

The country goes mad for A Bit On The Side

Thu, Aug 29, 2013

Top Irish stand-up comedian Conal Gallen brings his first ever comedy play, A Bit On The Side, to theatres across Ireland.

Conal and his son Rory began writing the comedy play three years ago and finally finished it in April of this year. The play was launched on August 7 to a sold out audience at the Balor Theatre, Ballybofey, finishing to a standing ovation.