This blog is a little late, coming 3 days after we opened Scratcher but now that the dust is settled, it’s about time we wrote a little something about our trip to Dublin. (Also, we’re only just emerging from the dust, relatively unscathed)
Scratcher was outsourced to Dublin this to take its inaugural bow. The Theatre Machine Turns You On: Vol II was a helluva festival featuring a whole slew of brand new theatre all performed in the Cube of the Project Arts Centre. And 4 shows a night! Those THEATREclubbers certainly know how to put the pressure on themselves. But it was all pulled off with aplomb and some serious smoothness. Some amount of fair plays all round.
We arrived up on Wednesday for our tech and dress rehearsal which went pretty damn smoothly… with the major exception being that we ran 2 minutes over our 45 minute slot. A small thing in general theatre terms you might think but with a show that has a 15 minute get in and a 15 minute get out before the new show starts, it makes a helluva lot of a difference. It was also nicely pointed out to us by the production team that the show would get laughs which would increase our time. Laughs? We’d forgotten about that… as you tend to do after 6 intensive weeks of rehearsals.
After a good intensive, show breaking slog in the Pearse Centre on Thursday afternoon, we trimmed a few minutes off the show and then put it in a bag and brought it down to the Project Arts Centre to meet it’s audience.
The show had been sold out days in advance (which knocked our wee white cotton socks off) so there was a lot of demand for tickets and we went in to be faced by a full house of people looking to be entertained. I think we fulfilled our end of the bargain. The show zipped by and by the end the place exploded and we got a standing ovation. Us humble Kilkennyers aren’t used to such displays of affection so we shuffled awkwardly off stage quite surprised by the reaction to the show. But we were very proud of the show and very proud of our team. We’re now taking our pride and putting into No. 76 John Street, Kilkenny from February 22nd – 26th. The Dublin performance certainly showed us what was working and we’re confident that Kilkenny audiences will get their money’s worth too.
We’d like to thank THEATREclub (Grace Dyas, Doireann Coady, Shane Byrne), Lara Hickey (for putting up with all our incessant questions, and also the sheer number of us), Gabriel, Zia, Helen, Sarah Jane and all the production crew who helped us out, the staff of the Project Arts Centre and finally, the Dublin audiences who showed up and gave us cheers!
We’re striding into this week with our heads up high and revolution ready to roll.
Scratcher plays Kilkenny from this Tuesday February 22nd – Saturday February 26th at 8pm nightly. Tickets are €12 and can be bought at No. 76 John Street and also right here on this very website.
