Cannibal! The Musical! Comes to a Close

There’s no denying that our production of Cannibal! has been all consuming these past few months. Both of our directors began preliminary work on the show back in November ‘06 and our audition process began way back in March of this year. And now, after all this time, the Irish premiere of Trey Parker’s “Cannibal! The Musical” has come and gone in four nights.

But what a few nights they were! Each evening, we brought our adaptation to the stage of the Watergate Theatre and each night we were overwhelmed and overjoyed at the warm reception we were given. We honestly couldn’t have asked for better audiences each night and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of your for handing over your hard earned cash and joining us on our retelling of the unfortunate mining expedition of Alferd Packer and his crew. It was a show of slapstick and satire, song and dance, brawling and feuding, snowmen and horses, whores and trappers and one man’s quest to find his true love, Liane. Our goal for Devious Theatre is to bring subversive theatre to a new, fresh audience and we hope we’ve managed to achieve that once again with this production. Audiences young and old filled the seats each night and the feedback we’ve been getting has been incredibly positive. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

We have a few specific people to thank who’ve helped us in getting this ragtag group of ragamuffins to the stage. These include: Jason McHugh, Philip Hardy, Frances O’Connor, Everyone at Barnstorm Theatre Company, Mary Butler, Kilkenny County Council Arts Office, Mike Kelly, Everyone at YIFM, Ger Cody and the staff of the Watergate Theatre, Everyone at Cleere’s, John Cleere, Edwina Grace, Nikki Brooks, Mick Brennan, Ned Green, Murt Brennan, Kilkenny Borough Council, Supernova Scotia, 40 Love, Jack O’Leary, The Coffee Club, Essaness Music, Kilkennymusic.com, The Kilkenny Advertiser, The Kilkenny People, The Kilkenny Voice, KCLR, Pius Meagher, Alan Slattery, Angela Barrett, Dreamstuff Youth Theatre, Collins Shoes.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful directors, Ken McGuire and Kevin Mooney for having the patience, time and vision for getting a group of people this size, both actors and crew, to create a show that came together so very well in the end. Thanks also to Kevin Reade for his musical direction, along with Jane Murphy and Sarah Buggy, all of which played magical musical instruments and made it all come alive! Thanks must also be extended to Gerry Taylor for his stellar work on lighting design and to Alan Dawson and Mickey “Boo” Keogh for all things in the audio department.

We’ll get a gallery of Cannibal! related images up in the near future, so keep them eyes peeled! It’ll be the most shpadoinkle collection of photos and imagery ever assembled!

Once again, thank you for supporting The Devious Theatre Company and we hope that you enjoyed our four night run of Cannibal! The Musical! because we certainly enjoyed bringing it to you.

Yours deviously and sincerely,
The Devious Theatre Company

ps. Amen

And We’re Off!

Can’t believe it but we’ve got our first night over and done with.

Unbelievable.

All I can say.

We’re live in the Watergate all this week, dropping in and out of mails, Bebo, MySpace and the like. To everyone who attended the opening night of the show, we thank you from the bottom of our Devious hearts. We’re running until Saturday night with some tickets remaining for each of the three remaining nights (including tonight) and if you can share in this theatrical experience with us then we’d love to have you along!

Our thanks to to all who have been in touch after last night for your kind words and reviews so far. We look forward to hearing what more of you have to say about the Irish premiere of Cannibal! The Musical!

Cannibal! The Musical! Opens Tonight!

Well, I don’t think we can really believe it but Cannibal! is really here, opening tonight to the public and from what we can see in the booking office it looks like there’ll be people there as well! Bookings look optimistic for the week – we’ve been covered in the local and regional press, or “severed hand” press packs resulted in a radio interview with Beat 102-103 FM on Monday evening which ran regularly throughout the day yesterday. We’re also appearing in studio this morning in KCLR, collecting the programmes from the printers, organising late leaflet drops, more posters than you can shake a stick at and all to be done for the cast and crew call at 6pm this evening.

To all of you attending tonight’s performance we welcome you to The Devious Theatre Company and to the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny. This is our first production in Kilkenny’s biggest theatre (having previously used Cleere’s Theatre) and certainly won’t be our last if we’ve anything to do with it.

If you are working in an Irish theatre yourself we’d love to talk to you about touring possibilities as we arrange our touring calendar for 2008, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

We look forward to seeing you tonight, if you want to drop around side stage afterwards and meet a few of the actors, get some autographs (we’re a right cheeky bunch aren’t we) or just offer your thoughts on the production then we’d love to hear from you as well! To all who have been involved to date, to our advertising sponsors and everyone who has been working around the clock on Cannibal! The Musical! we thank you – but we’re only just getting started

The Final Night Of Rehearsals

Well, it has finally arrived. Tonight can be pretty much be regarded as the final night of rehearsals given that we move into the theatre this coming Monday afternoon to start erecting the set, getting the lights focused and fine tuning some movements in our new surroundings.

I don’t think there’s any of us in the group that would be a stranger to the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny, the floorboards in the 320+ capacity venue having been graced many times by our cast members across various different shows. This, however, will be the very first time that The Devious Theatre Company has taken the step onto the big stage.

Speaking as a director of and actor in this show, as well as a life-long fan of Cannibal (my first query about the rights must be six years ago anyway), I must say that I’m proud to have reached this moment. Ourselves at the core of the ‘Devious committee have been working since last November on this production, expanding to a larger committee of 8 earlier this year. When all of our hard work, coupled with the extremely hard work of a dedicated cast comes to light you find yourself drifting back to those lines…

We made it.

We made it.

We have made it – this far anyway. We’ve got plenty of work to be doing in the run up to Monday – sets are being painted, leaflets are being passed out, our radio advert is wrapped and commences Monday morning, the last press contacts are going out, final props are being gathered, costumes stitched or washed… all the nitty gritty details.

The fact of the matter is that we’re hitting the Watergate Theatre on Monday and opening to the public from Wednesday August 22nd to Saturday August 25th. We’d like to thank you for helping us there, to those of you who are following the progress of the Devious Theatre company and to those of you who have already booked your tickets to come see the Irish premiere of Cannibal! The Musical.

God bless us everyone!

Two Weeks to Opening Night!

That mere fact is something that astonishes me, as the audition process back in March seems like it was only yesterday. Yes folks, it’s less than two weeks to the opening night of the Irish premiere of Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical! It’s all hands on deck at this point as we all hurriedly rush about getting all the necessities tied up and prepped for the big night. The final poster made it’s online debut last week but starting from tomorrow, we’ll be peppering the town with as many of them as possible.

Speaking of promoting the show, our press packs have been polished, wrapped up and are winging their way to all necessary media outlets, spreading joy (”Yay! A package in the post!”), fear (”Oh dear, there’s a severed hand in here”) and word on our project that has consumed us all at The Devious Theatre Company for many a month. More can be read about these interesting press packs at their creator, Ross Costigan’s weblog.

The rehearsals too have been pretty relentless as we get nearer to the 22nd. The songs are shaping up nicely, the scenes are gaining some improvised magic and a certain dream sequence had us all proclaim it’s one the strangest things you’ll see on stage this year.

We’ll continue to update our site during the buildup, performance and aftermath of Cannibal! We hope you’ll all join us for the ride?

Keep watching the skiis!
The Devious Theatre Company

Table Quiz Postponed

We’re sorry for the late notice on this one but tonight’s fundraiser table quiz which was scheduled for the Village Inn at 8pm has been postponed until September 7th.

Thanks to all for being patient and apologies for any inconvenience caused!

Cannibal! The Musical! The Final Poster Artwork!

With only a handful of weeks left to the opening of Cannibal! The Musical!, the promotional gears are beginning to turn. So today, for you good folk, we present the final poster artwork for the show! It’s a ‘devious’ pastiche of a famous painting of an awkward supper, where everyone sat at a long table and didn’t face each other for some reason.

Pictured are (from left to right):
Dolly (played by Liadain Kaminska), George Noon (Niamh Moroney), Francine (Suzanne O’ Brien), James Humphrey (Stephen Colfer), Shannon Wilson Bell (John Morton), Polly Prye (Amy Dunne), Alferd Packer (David Thompson), Joanie (Hazel Fahy), Israel Swan (Ken McGuire), Frank Miller (Ross Costigan), Preston Nutter (Dave Minogue), O.D. Loutzenheiser (Eddie Brennan) and Jean “Frenchy” Cabazon (Paddy Dunne). The show is directed by Ken McGuire and Kevin Mooney with Musical Direction from Kevin Reade.

With thanks to YIFM for the use of their facilities for the photoshoot and to Ross Costigan who was on photosnapping facilities with myself on the day.

Cannibal! The Musical! runs at the Watergate Theatre, Parliament St., Kilkenny from 22nd to 25th of August. Tickets are on sale NOW from the venue. Bookings can be made at +353 56 7761674

It’s A Long Long Way… For Us To Go!

Ok, so the diary thing hasn’t *exactly* been going to plan in posting daily rehearsal updates but we’ve been making notes along the way and will start back-cataloging stuff later. The reason the updates haven’t been appearing is that we’re absolutely flat out busy with rehearsals, committee meetings, organising the final run of props, costumes, more photoshoots and everything else besides.

We’ve made some terrific developments around the Saguache bar scene, the trapper’s song and all the musical numbers in between now that our MD is a regular at rehearsals (and will be to the opening night in just over three weeks time!). Jesus – just over three weeks time! I guess it isn’t a long way for us to go after all!

Scripts are being discarded, everyone looks terrific in full costume (though we’re not showing you those photographs *just* yet) and the show is ticking along nicely. We’ve got one more rehearsal this week, four next week, then we’re five nights from Monday the 13th of August which sees us running the show in full each night. Once that week passes we’re off to the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny for a week of mayhem.

Don’t forget that tickets can be booked NOW by phoning the Watergate box office on +353 56 7761674. If you’re planning a group booking then email us in advance to info@devioustheatre.com and we’ll see if we can arrange something for you! Don’t forget to keep checking the site for updates in the run up to the show!