creating adventures with young people in Newbridge, Ireland since 1996
By The Bog Of Cats
6th-7th December 2018, Riverbank Theatre
PRODUCTION AND CAST:
Director: Allie Whelan
Assistant Director: Vasiliki Psarra
Hester Swane: Cat Coyle
Josie Kilbride: Alison Power
Carthage Kilbride: Joe Brown
Mrs Kilbride: Lauren Kelly
Caroline Cassidy: Becky Donovan
Xavier Cassidy: Fergus Whyte
Monica Murray: Sadhbh Neville
Joseph Swane: Shane Doran
Catwoman: Sinead Mooney
The Ghost Fancier: Lorcan O’Shea
Father Willow: Ben McGoohan
Long Dunne: Leon Cullen
By the Bog of Cats is Marina Carr’s searing tragedy inspired by Euripides’ Medea and set in the Irish midlands. Spurned by the man she loves, Hester Swaine lives as an outcast on the edge of the bog - from where most of the settled community want her gone. Faced with the loss of her home and her only child, Hester conjures a desperate and tragic plan to revenge all those who rejected her.
The play was directed by Allie Whelan, a former Kildare Youth Theatre member and later one of a team of 6 in the Abbey Theatre’s innovative Young Curator’s Project.
By the Bog of Cats was a Leaving Certificate English main text for students sitting the exam in 2019 and 2020, and is a commonly featured play at Kildare Youth Theatre.
A Promotional Trailer:
TeeNEXTers Festival 2018
16th-24th November 2018, Lille, France
(Click through the slider to see some pictures taken throughout the festival)
Once again, Kildare Youth Theatre traveled to the northern French city of Lille to watch and critique contemporary continental pieces of theater, alongside participation with other youth theatre companies from all over Europe.
The 2018 project involved the participation of Buda Kunstencentrum of Belgium, Bronks Jeugdtheatre of Belgium, Rogaland Teater of Norway, Youth Theatre Arts Scotland and of course Kildare Youth Theatre. It was hosted by Theatre le Grand Bleu of France.
TeeNEXTers is an Erasmus+ funded education project. It runs alongside the international festival called NEXT Arts Festival. During the festival, the participants met and viewed selected shows from the NEXT Festival all across Lille and southern Belgium. They then make creative and critical responses to the shows, using a variety of media including devising, filming and graphic-novel drawing. Themes discussed and explored are generally those which are felt and experienced by the participants during the shows they watch.
The aim of the project is to help young people develop their critical facilities, so that they can edit and coherently express educated views about works of art. They are taught how to do this by professional and expert critics and theatre-makers from Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium and Norway.
Supplicants Youth Exchange
5th-12th August 2018, Athens, Greece
Supplicants was an Eramus+ funded youth exchange involving members from Kildare Youth Theatre, On&Off Teatro of Spain, and Knitiras of Greece, the latter being the host of this project. Supplicants aimed to tackle and explore the stigma surrounding migrants and immigration. Why are people suspicious of migrants, and what can we do to change this? These questions were explored through group work involving all three countries. Topics and questions were raised in discussions, and these ideas were then translated into pieces of dance and theatre. All the young people in each country were motivated by a need to understand more about the reality facing refugees in Europe, and therefore worked, devised and performed alongside refugees from various Middle Eastern countries.
"Within seconds of talking to them, I completely forgot they were refugees and I just thought of them as a friend. It’s heartbreaking to think of everything they went through, and they are only my age" - Female, 18.
"Not only did the medium of acting help the refugees express their stories, but it also acted as a tool of communication between the different nationalities" - Male, 19
A short documentary of the project can be watched in full below:
Equal Love Youth Exchange
1st-10th July 2018, Oldenburg, Germany
Equal Love was an Erasmus+ funded Youth Exchange which took place in Oldenburg, Germany. The project was focused on the rights, political agenda, and issues faces by the LGBTQ+ community, particularly the opinion of same sex marriages across the EU.
The project aimed to highlight the emotional trauma young people who question their sexuality go through, and how this can have a negative effect on their mental health. The project used both theatre and video-making to explore and express the thoughts and opinions brought up by the project and the collaborative work.
The project involved the participation of Jugendkulturarbeit of Oldenburg, Bondiek Buhne of Austria, Youth 4 Youth of Italy, Bliski Wschod of Poland, CZM of Slovenia, ON&OFF Teatro of Spain, Toonspeak Theatre of the UK, and of course Kildare Youth Theatre.
The project also heavily utilised social method to help promote the efforts and ideas of its participants.
The official Instagram page for the project can be found here.
William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'
1st-3rd May 2018, Riverbank Theatre
Kildare Youth Theatre aims to stage large-scale shows like Macbeth to the highest standards possible, while also using the themes of the play to explore our contemporary world. Politics and power were at the heart of this production of Macbeth, in which a powerful and successful war-lord tries to become a head of state but finds the field of politics requires hugely different skills than the field of war. The young cast brought fresh and innovation interpretations to their roles and scenes, involving creative use of slow motion, dazzling sword fights, microphones and public address, and one unforgettable re-interpretation of Brittney Spear’s Toxic. - An excerpt from the Kildare Nationalist, 2018
The Official Trailer:
Some Pictures from the Show:
A full, edited, live performance of our 2018 Macbeth production can be viewed below:
Philip Ridley's 'Karamazoo'
21st April 2018, Liffey Studio | 21st September 2018, Riverbank Car Park
Karamazoo is a 25 minute monologue written in 2003 by London author Philip Ridley. It is one of the most perfect pieces of writing for a young actor, combining fresh story-telling and comic characterisation that slowly reveals an unflinching critique of a failed social policy through the savage grief of a teenager struggling to cope with the death of a parent. This 2018 male rendition was performed by Joe Brown and directed by Peter Hussey.
With thanks to: Katerina Kataki and Theo Nadal. Performed by special arrangement with Samuel French Ltd.
NT Connections 2018 - 'Want'
23rd-24th March 2018, Riverbank Theatre | 5th May 2018, Lyric Theatre Belfast
The Act of Oblivion I & II: Laudabiliter & Surrender and Regrant
10th-11th February 2018 & 27th June 2018, Riverbank Theatre | 3rd August 2018, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham, England
In the first production of 2018, Kildare Youth Theatre attempts to explore what happens when the colonised try to live alongside the coloniser. How is their shared history re-told?
In 1604, at the end of the Irish Nine Years' War, an Act of Oblivion declared that all "offences against the crown" committed before the King's accession were to be "pardoned, remitted, and utterly extinguished". But they were not forgotten.
Two short plays interweave and are told at the same time by two separate companies of young actors. In one, Charlie has organised the perfect New Year's Eve party in his campus accommodation, but his plans don't include the enigmatic Elliot who somehow seems to live there too, but not even Charlie knows how or why.
In the other play Sean has the house to himself when his parents go away and he organises a rehearsal of their Irish-speaking 'phunc-rock' band but Eoghan brings a new singer. From Estonia. Who doesn't speak Irish. But who has lots of money.
Both plays run their course through, across, and in-between each other, oblivious of each other. Can a settlement to share the stage be reached?
CAST (In order of appearance across multiple shows):
ACT OF OBLIVION I: Laudabiliter
Charlie - Charlie Hughes-Farrell
Elliot - Elliot Nolan
'Cédric' - Felix Laube
Anna - Anna Hyllested
Joe - Joe Brown
Alexandra - Alexandra Sakavitsi
Rhea - Rhea Thomaku
Doug - Doug Morrison
Hannah - Hannah Power
Lauren - Lauren Kelly
ACT OF OBLIVION II: Surrender And Regrant
Seán - Seán Dowse
Cian - Cian Ó Náraigh
Eoghan - Eoghan Ó Laoghaire
'Gloria' (Kat) - Katerina Kataki
Oisín - Oisín Heffernan
Peter - Peter McHale
'Gloria' (Hollie) - Hollie Murphy
A complete, edited live performance of the show can be watched in its entirety below:
A Promotional Trailer:
Miscellaneous
A compilation of some other noteworthy 2018 moments for KYT
