Theatre for visually and hearing impaired at Glór

AUDIENCES will have the opportunity to be part of a historic theatrical experience in Ennis next month.
Fishamble: The New Play Company are bringing the hugely successful revival of The Pride of Parnell Street on an eight-venue, five-week long national tour of Ireland, with a performance in Glór on May 13 and 14.
For the first time ever in Ireland, there will be one audio-described and captioned performance in each venue of the tour. This is facilitated by Arts and Disability Ireland and marks the rolling out of ADI’s assisted performance service for audiences with disabilities nationwide. The audio described and captioned performance will take place on May 13 at 8pm in the Ennis venue.
Originally premiered in London and featured at the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival in 2007, The Pride of Parnell Street by internationally-renowned playwright and novelist, Sebastian Barry, has toured Ireland and internationally to great critical acclaim and packed houses.
Director Jim Culleton says, “We in Fishamble are looking forward to bringing The Pride of Parnell Street home again and for Irish audiences to have another chance to experience this very special play”.
The Pride of Parnell Street is an incredibly moving story of a married couple. In a series of inter-cutting monologues, Janet and Joe chart the intimacies of their love and the rupturing of their relationship. This is an intimate, heroic tale of ordinary and extraordinary life on the streets of Dublin.
Jim Culleton directs the multi-award-winning cast of Mary Murray (Best Female Performer at First Irish festival in New York for her role of Janet, Best Actress at the MAMCA Award 2008) and Joe Hanley (Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards 2010 nominee) and the play features the exceptional design team of Sabine Dargent (set/costumes), Mark Galione (lighting) and Denis Clohessy (music) (Irish Times Irish Theatre Award winner 2010).
Pádraig Naughton, director ADI states that, “It has been Arts and Disability Irelands’ ambition to take our services to where blind/visually impaired and deaf/hard-of-hearing audiences live around Ireland. Our collaboration with Fishamble on this national tour of The Pride of Parnell Street is giving reality to that long-held ambition and a whole new level of access to people with disabilities of high-quality Irish theatre. As a visually impaired person, to be a part of making the first national tour happen in Ireland is both empowering and a privilege.”
Fishamble: The New Play Company is one of Ireland’s most dynamic theatre companies and is dedicated to discovering and producing new plays for the Irish and international stage.
This tour is funded by The Arts Council’s Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme 2011 and is in association with the NASC Touring Network. Fishamble is funded by The Arts Council and Dublin City Council. The company’s international touring is funded by Culture Ireland. Audio-described and captioned performances are facilitated by Arts and Disability Ireland, with funding from the Arts Council.
Other plays by the internationally renowned Sebastian Barry include Boss Grady’s Boys (1988, Abbey), Prayers of Sherkin (1990, Abbey), The Steward of Christendom (1995, Royal Court and Out of Joint), Our Lady of Sligo (1998, Royal National Theatre, Out of Joint, and Gate Theatre), Whistling Psyche (2004, Almeida Theatre), Dallas Sweetman (2008, Canterbury Festival and Paines Plough), and Tales of Ballycumber (2009, Abbey Theatre).
His theatre awards include the BBC/Stewart Parker Trust Award, the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Ireland/America Literary Prize, the Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play, the Writers’ Guild Award, the Lloyds Private Banking Playwright of the Year Award in 1995/6 and the Peggy Ramsay Play Award, as well as nominations for the Olivier Award and an Irish Times Theatre Award.
Sebastian has also published several works of poetry and fiction, including the novels The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty; Annie Dunne; A Long Long Way (2005, Faber) which won the Kerry Group Fiction Award, was short listed for the Booker Prize 2005 and the International Impact Dublin Literary Award, and was the selected title of the 2007 Dublin: One City, One Book initiative of Dublin City Council; and The Secret Scripture which won The Costa Book of the Year, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize, The Independent Booksellers’ Book Prize,  the Hughes and Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and many other prizes internationally, and has been translated into 30 languages.
Sebastian was Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin in 1996, received a Dublin Lord Mayor’s Award for services to literature in 2009, and an honorary doctorate from the University of East Anglia in 2010. His new novel is On Canaan’s Side.