2009 proved to be quite an eventful year for us folks at The Devious Theatre Company. In previous years, we had set a template of one large scale show during the summer in June and a smaller scale show, usually following in late August. This year however, being the devious chaps and chappettes that we are, it’s fair to say we shook things up significantly…
STAGS AND HENS – 21-25 JULY
Things kicked off in May with a launch party at the Watergate Theatre for our production of Willy Russell’s Stags and Hens. The show itself is a viciously funny study of working class attitudes to marriage, love and ambition in dead end Liverpool of 1978. It also marked the first time the show was performed in Kilkenny and we were thrilled to be bringing it to the stage at the Watergate. The launch party got the ball rolling on our comprehensive promotional runup to the show with the release of a teaser poster and the announcement of our cast. We were delighted with the addition of some fresh faces to the cast as well as the return of some familiar ones. Along with the usual slew of promo photos and posters, we ventured into the realm of online video content, specifically a trailer and a handful of weblogs. We even made a brief appearance on Newstalk with Tom Dunne to talk about Kilkenny’s steadily growing hen party problems. Capping off the parade of promotion, was a seventies themed fundraiser night in Cleeres wherein everybody put their flares and platform shoes on and boogied the night away to some good ol’ disco, funk, glam and soul.
We set up camp in the Watergate Theatre on 19th of July and having constructed our set, ran tech and dress rehearsals and drank copious amounts of red bull – we were good to go. The show itself was a wonderful success. After the insanity of Trainspotting and the quirks of Smitten in 2008, it was nice to perform a conventional play – one that relied on the camaraderie of its cast of characters and the wit and humour of a man as renowned as Willy Russell. The feedback (both positive and negative) was superb, further helping to shape the company and give us an insight into our audiences.
Related Blog Posts:
Stags and Hens (and the rest of the summer)
Stags and Hens – Final Poster
The Stags – The Hens
70s Nite – Fundraiser Event
Stags and Hens Video Diary 1
Kav and Frances – Dave – Carol and Maureen – Robbie and Billy – Bernie and Eddy – Linda – The Roadie – The Blood Brothers
Stags and Hens Trailer
The Big Day Is Approaching
Follow Stags and Hens on Twitter, A Day Off
Settling Into The Theatre
Stags and Hens Interview (Listen)
Reaching the Midway Point
And So We Face The Final Curtain
Stags and Hens Wraps, Thanks
Some News Pics from Stags and Hens
SHAKESPEARE IN BITS – JUNE/OCTOBER/NOVEMBER
A slight deviation from the usual Devious output as we performed not once, but twice the works of the great Bard himself. Shakespeare In The House was a successful event that was held at Rothe House in collaboration with Young Irish Filmmakers, Dreamstuff Youth Theatre and Kilkenny 400. With production on Stags and Hens taking up all free time, it wasn’t possible for us to stage a full on Shakespeare production so we decided to do something to complement the fine work that will no doubt be done by the good thespians of Dreamstuff Youth Theatre.
The production was made up of various Shakespeare related sketches (Shakespeare’s editor and a 16th centruy version of the Bale rant with William Shakespeare walking in front of the ‘cantelbras’), some Shakespeare based works (The Reduced Shakespeare Company, Rosencrantz and Guidenstern Are Dead), some devised Shakespeare pieces, some monologues and a whole lot of nice little bridging devices between. It’s going to be a crash course in Shakespeare for the ADD generation. Overall it was a great success for us. So much so that we returned during the Rockfall Festival in October to perform a limited run in Cleeres over three nights all in aid of Enable Ireland and The O’Neill Centre.
Shakespeare In Bits returned to the stage once again in November. Not on a Kilkenny stage however, but on the stand-up stage at the Ha’Penny Bridge Inn in Dublin for one night only. Hopefully we can return to the capital soon for further Devious antics.
Related Blog Posts:
New Show: Shakespeare In Bits
In Bits – Stephen Colfer – John Doran – Eddie Murphy
Shakespeare In Bits this weekend
Shakespeare In Bits Trailer
Shakespeare In Bits – Day 1
Shakespeare In Bits – Day 2
Shakespeare In Pictures, Media
Shakespeare In Dublin
Dario Fo Season and ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST – 2-6 DECEMBER
Directly off the back of the Rockfall Festival performance of Shakespeare In Bits, we made our announcement that we would be performing a Season of plays by Italian playwright Dario Fo at the newly opened Set Theatre. Set had just opened during the Arts Festival and it was thrilling for us to be performing in such a new and exciting venue. Two of his most revered plays would make up the season: Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!
His best known play Accidental Death Of An Anarchist opened the season on December 2nd to Sunday December 6th. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of an anarchist from a fourth floor police window, the policemen involved are having difficulties remembering the details of the event. That is, until a nameless, deranged madman shows up and proceeds to tie the authorities around his fingers in a master class performance of utter logic. In the runup to the show we once again bombarded local media with promotional imagery, did live readings of portions of the script on radio and gave our cast members a good interrogation or two.
The run went incredibly for us and we were ecstatic with the response that it received. Audiences were immensely enthusiastic about the show with consistent belly laughs and an equal amounts of applause. The audiences were very generous and very receptive to something that looks so starkly different from anything they’ve seen before in Kilkenny. Local press too were impressed with very kind reviews from Kilkenny People and with The Munster Express even saying it was a “furious tour de force of biting satire and a comedic rant that dazzled with daring” and saying of David Thompson that he impressed more than Tom Vaughan Lawlor in Arturo Ui! Marvelous stuff.
The Dario Fo Season will continue in 2010 with Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! Further details will be available on this site very, very soon
Related Blog Posts:
Presenting a Season of Dario Fo
Accidental Death of an Anarchist at Set Theatre
Accidental Death of an Anarchist – Final Poster
Director’s Blog: Adapting The Text
Chasing The Madman
Final Week Rehearsals
Interrogating – David Thompson – Ken McGuire – Alan Butler – Sean Hackett – John Morton – Simone Kelly
Who Is Dario Fo? (And why does he stick it to the man?)
Accidental Death Opens
Through The Square Window
ACCOLADES FOR DEVIOUS THEATRE IN 2009
Just to briefly touch upon some nice recognition the company received in 2009 – The year opened with an article by John Cleere in the Kilkenny Advertiser saying of us that a Devious show is a “Guaranteed good night out” and that Devious was the only word in Kilkenny theatre in 2008. We had a lot to live up to in 2009! In February the good people at the Irish Blog Awards shortlisted us for Best Arts and Culture blog. Unfortunately we lost out on the night, but it’s still a mighty fine accolade nonetheless. Here’s to next year! Speaking of mighty fine accolades, our radio broadbasted podcast of War of the Worlds was nominated for Best Drama at the PPI National Radio Awards. The Devious crew put on their swankiest of gladrags and tipped along to Lyrath Estate Hotel for the glitzy ceremony. In the end, we brought home the Bronze award and were utterly thrilled with such recognition which will hopefully give us and KCLR a fantastic boost and the impetus to continue creating further radio dramas.
Related Blog Posts:
A Guaranteed Good Night Out
We’re Off To The Irish Blog Awards
We’re Nominated for a PPI Award for Best Drama
Bronze Award for The Devious Theatre Company, KCLR
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS FOR 2010!!!
Tomorrow marks the first day of the new year. A new decade even! As we here at The Devious Theatre Company work away on pre-production for Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! we’re shuffling around our schedule for the year. Who knows what other tricks we have in store? Stay tuned to this here website for all the news and be sure to follow us on twitter. We tweet like madmen, so we do.
In conclusion, it’s been an incredible and productive year for us. There’s been some downs but mostly ups. We seriously could not do it without you, our lovely lovely audience and we hope to see you all again real soon.
Thank you sincerely from the very bottom of our hearts for all your support and see you in the new year!
From all of us at,
The Devious Theatre Company