Following their hit shows the previous two years – set in a bus and a courthouse, in 2010 they opted for a school. The audience followed the action through classrooms, staffrooms, and lockerrooms to find out what stories were created by Waterford writers remembering their ‘happy’ school days.
The young people at Waterford youth Arts and various adult actors including Bag Of Trees Theatre Company presented a very novel show at Mount Sion Secondary as part of the Imagine Festival. Seven short plays under the title 'Diversions : School Days' were presented with the audience walking from staff room to classrooms and from toilets to the gym. The result was madness, mayhem and much fun. The writers included: Patrick O'Sullivan, Sinead Bolger, Elaine Roche, Brian Coady, Dean Sullivan, Martina Collender and Eimear Cheasty. The audience number each night was limited to forty people. |
REVIEW BY JIM NOLAN
Waterford Youth Arts crowned an auspicious 25th Anniversary year at Mount Sion Secondary School recently with an eclectic and highly entertaining programme of eight short plays, presented under the Diversions label as part of the Imagine Arts Festival. Diversions began in 2007 with an invitation to local playwrights to write plays on any theme or subject but linked by a common location.
The inaugural series was presented on a Kenneally’s Bus as it moved around the city and was followed in 2009 when the plays took place at Waterford Courthouse. This year the action shifted to the Mount Sion Secondary School on Barrack St. where on the night I attended, a large audience crowded by turn into a staff room, a series of classrooms, a stairway and even a toilet where, in Eimear Cheasty’s hilarious and touching Hail Mary, the Blessed Virgin emerged from a cubicle to comfort a pregnant teenager!
Space doesn’t allow for a critique of each of the plays but taken as a whole they amounted to a potent reminder that good theatre can be made anywhere if it is fuelled with enthusiasm, integrity and imagination. These qualities richly illuminated the work of the ensemble of actors, writers and directors who comprised this year’s Diversions, their combined talent and creative energy utterly transforming a wet October evening for an extremely appreciative audience.
If the success of Diversions is a collective one, this year’s production owes most to the talent, commitment and inspiration of one individual, Martina Collender. Martina directed Brian Coady’s amusing and affecting How to Skin a Cat, acted in Hazel Davis’ passionate drama, Natural Progression and was the author of the powerful and poignant Class A1 Class C3. And as if that wasn’t enough to occupy her, Martina also took responsibility for the overall curation of a memorable evening’s theatre. Praise to Martina, Praise to Diversions, Praise and Happy Anniversary to Waterford Youth Arts! |
