In a necessary contrast, the girl/woman he once almost loved confuses words such as eulogy with elegy as readily as she confuses facts.

Her rebellious streak makes him initially protective and the way in which these conflicting but pot~ntially complementary characteristics harden and distort drives what there is of the action.

Writer Jody O’Neill doesn’t overstate the case, but arranges possibilities w:ith too little regard for likelihood (for example, if the social stigma she indicates is as powerful as it has to be here, how does the much-mentioned subsequent marriage come about?). There are also one or two moments reminiscent of other plays on the theme of young, unspoken and unfulfilled love, including even what might be called a balcony scene. But it is this insouciance which defmes the work, especially as it is carried through by the convincing performances and assured timing ofJohn McCarthy and Jody O’Neill herself.

The poignant innocence of their youthful encounters is given comic counterpoint by the. freezer lowing like a tanker in the kitchen, where home-made cryogenic procedures are attempted. If this suggests a black comedy, the suggestion in inaccurate.

Directed with a light hand by Jack Healy, with sound design by Carl Kennedy, the comedy is assured, beautifully pointed and anything but dark.

Mary Leland, The Irish Times, 10/01/2008

They Never Froze Walt Disney

The Granary Theatre, Cork
8th-12th January at 8pm (preview January 7th)

Bookings & Info: 021 490 4275

A play that premiered during the Midsummer Festival is back on stage in Cork this week, at a time when the temperature is more in keeping with the title.

Jody O’Neill has written a one-hour play starring herself and John McCarthy, and it is difficult not to have a smile fixed to your face for the duration.

Paudie and Marie come on like two archetypal hangovers from an almost forgotten Ireland. They meet in a funeral home, which could be located anywhere between Shandon Street and Craggy Island.

Jody O’Neill’s character is a home-knit psychosis that steadily unravels as the threads of the story are tugged. It is not long before we find our that she is responsible for the death of the man laid out for removal.

Her childhood sweetheart - still friendly after all the years - is played with comic skill by John McCarthy, who is in equal measures daft and deferential. When Marie confides that she finds it cold, Paudie tells her helpfully, “That’ll be the guilt”.

Director Jack Healy puts a nice squeeze on the script, getting the play to pop with a sense of sexual repression. The flickering of scenes between youth and older age is done very credibly and with the minimum of fuss.

It is tantalising to think what might have been if the script ratcheted up the comedy instead of moving wholeheartedly into loneliness and madness at the end.

But this is a very enjoyable, zany little love story kept naggingly on simmer for years. And Jody O’Neill leaves the stage with her cooky charms intact - like she is popping out to catch the last Mass.

Liam Heylin, Evening Echo, 09/01/2008.

The trailer, starring Jody O’Neill as Marie & John McCarthy of Hammergrin as Paudie, was directed by our very own Jack Healy & Eoin Ó hAnnracháin of Clinic Media, filmed by Barry Ronan of Ephira Films,edited by Eoin and the text was designed by Frank Prendergast.

A Darkly Comic Tale of Love and Loneliness

Previewing Monday January 7th and running Tuesday January 8th to Saturday January 12th nightly at 8pm at the Granary Theatre, The Mardyke, Cork. Tickets are priced at €15 and €10 (preview and concession).

Directed by Jack Healy, this darkly comic piece traces the lives of Marie (Jody O’Neill) and Paudie (John McCarthy), from the 1960’s to present day, flashing between their first encounters and the highly suspicious circumstances that reunite them many years later.

Theatre Makers is a new theatre company based in Cork, committed to developing new ways of facilitating the actor’s art. They Never Froze Walt Disney, the company’s first production, premiered last June as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival where it was warmly received by audiences and critics alike.
“. . . sparkling black comic dialogue…” (Irish Examiner).
For further information, please contact Jack Healy, 086 0662705. Eoin Ó hAnnracháin 086 3419394 or log on to www.theatremakers.net

Pertaining to first Home Alone Film only.

Q. What is the name of the little boy who is the main character in the film?
A. Kevin.

Q.What time of the year does the film take place.
A. Christmas Time.

Q. All Kevin’s family, (aunts uncles cousins etc) are gathered in his house a few days before Christmas, Why.
A. They are getting ready to travel to Paris where they will spend Christmas Day.

Q. Kevin is reprimanded by his mother. Why?
A. He has a fight with his brother at the dinner table and spills some drink.

Q. What is his punishment?
A. He is sent to sleep on his own in the attic.

Q. What are his last words before going into the attic.
A. “I don’t ever want to see any of you again” To his family.

Q. Why are the family late for the flight?
A. There is a power cut during the night and the alarm clock doesn’t work.

Kevin wakes the next morning to discover that his family have mysteriously disappeared.

Q. Now that he is the man of the house, Kevin does certain things that adults normally do. List a few of these things?
A. He goes shopping. He does the washing. He shaves. He puts up the Christmas decorations. He goes to church.

Q. What does Kevin fear in the basement?
A. The boiler.

Q. What food does he order?
A. Pizza.

Q. What trick does he play on the pizza delivery guy?
A. He plays the soundtrack of a video, which makes the pizza delivery guy think there is a gangster in the house.

Q. With his family gone, Kevin makes a new friend. Who is it?
A. The old man from next door.

Q. Where does Kevin talk to the old man fro the first time.
A. In the church.

Q. Why is the old man in the church?
A. To hear his grand daughter singing.

Q. Why is that such a big deal for the old man.
A. Because he has never met his grand daughter. He had a fight with his son before she was born and they have never made up. He has not spoken to his son since.

Q. What advice does Kevin give the old man?
A. To give his son a call, that he has nothing to loose.

Q. What kind of funny pet does his brother have?
A. A spider.

Q. List three traps that Kevin sets for the burglars.
A. He pours water on the pavement outside-it turns to black ice and the burglars slip on it. He puts marbles on the stairs. He heats the handle of the door until it is red hot.

Q. When Kevin is caught by the two thieves, who rescues him?
A. The old man.

Q. In what way does Kevin change as a consequence of his adventures?
A. At the start he is a bit at odds with his family. At the end he is at one with them.

The Actor on the Edge.

Is it possible to consider the actors’ art as a potentially stand alone phenomenon in its own right?

We certainly tend to think of the actors’ art as one which depends on prior creative initiatives by others for its activation. Most actors would prescribe to this view, assuming that they will be creatively inactive unless enlisted onto projects by others through the casting system.

Once enlisted (if enlisted) the actor often may not be viewed as a creative contributor to the process in his/her own right, but more fabric in the hands of other artists, (Director/writer etc.).

This in turn has led to a mythology in the theatre community which makes employment and income prerequisites to professional status – a state of affairs which is of little use to most actors’, given that most of them are unemployed (as actors) most of the time.

Most actor training does little to engender a sense of creative autonomy in the actor, encouraging him/her to develop as a servant to the character based script and those who take charge of its articulation.

All of this has led to a marginalisation of the actor in the workings of theatre, a situation which is farther reflected in the distribution of available funding to the sector. Funding initiatives tend to be focused on companies and venues, which in turn act as distributors of available funding to the sector as a whole. Actors tend to be the least considered in this process of distribution, often enlisted to the minimum extent and for the shortest amount of time in the workings of the average company- a very slight element in its working profile.

And yet when you go to see a piece of theatre, it is the actor that you see. The actor is the only artists without whom you can not have a piece of theatre. A situation which sees the actors’ art marginalised within the theatre making process can not but have a negative impact on the experience that is theatre for the average theatre goer.

The Working Actors’ Workshop.

The Working Actors’ Workshop was put in place by Theatre Makers Ltd. to address this situation.

It proceeds on the assumption that existing theatre making models need to be examined and new, possibly more effective models considered.

Central to this examination is an analysis of how existing theatre making collaborations work and an identification of who is empowered creatively within them. This is done with a view to developing a collaborative model in which all participants have parity of esteem and are all connected creatively to the process.

The ultimate goal is a more empowered theatre art.

The Actor as the Essential Artist of the Theatre.

The workshop acknowledges that while all creative participants have a validity, the actors’ art is the essential art of the theatre in that the actor is the only artist without whom you can not have a piece of theatre. All theatre art, regardless of how it is initiated and developed has to be mediated through the actor. There may be virtue in taking steps to empower the actor as the architect of the immediate theatre experience.

Without being dismissive of the value of collaboration, the workshop undertakes to examine the actors’ art as a phenomenon in its own right, capable of delivering art without necessarily entering into contract with writers and directors etc. The workshop undertakes to develop the idea of a studio in which an actor can proceed immediately to the making of theatre art

The workshop encourages actors’ to have a sense of creative autonomy in the work that they do and to think of themselves as having the potential to be creative initiators.

Workshop Method.

The workshop begins by putting the actors’ art in the context of art making in general and draws much from an examination of how other artists in other creative categories work.

In the broadest sense it identifies a process common to virtually all art whereby a fabric is taken and shaped in some way. In the case of the actor, the fabric that he/she uses is the stuff of him/herself. In the workshop we look at what we call the actors’ ‘manifestations’ the voice the body, the soul, the mind, the emotions, the experiences etc. Anything that can be considered to be ‘of’ the actor. Much of the workshop is concerned with getting the actor to identify these manifestations and acknowledge them for the potential that they have when it comes to making art.

The actor is then encouraged to use these manifestations to explore possible domains of content, in much the same way as a visual artist will sketch or a musician will improvise.

The workshop then creates the circumstances within which the actor can move from this initial phase of creative exploration to the development of a piece of theatre art.

This phase does not preclude more traditional methods of theatre making. The important thing is that, while the actor may enlist the participation of others in the development of a project, he/she does not cede autonomy away in the process.

The challenge inherent in this is a drive towards the idea of theatre art as a pure form in its own right, not necessarily one dependent on the narrative, the musical, the literary or the visual as prerequisites to its existence with the actor as its essential architect, being the one most immediate to its articulation.

Workshop History.

The workshop has been in existence for over a year. It takes place every Wednesday afternoon at the Firkin Crane Arts Centre in Cork. It has eleven members, seven of whom were regulars at the workshop through out the year.

Each member pays a small annual fee (€100/€75).

The workshop is an end in itself in that it is a studio environment in which participating actors’ can pursue art for its own sake. Consequently, public presentation of work made is not a condition of involvement.

The workshop did however have two public outings during the year.

2. “The Fast Theatre Events” which took place at the Triskel Arts Centre on three consecutive Sunday afternoons during the month of February 2007. The Fast Theatre Event was an exercise in public improvisation designed by the workshop and consisted in bringing the private workshop session into a public setting. It was free to the public and enjoyed a growing success over the three weeks. It is something that the workshop will pursue in the future.

2. “They Never Froze Walt Disney” by Jody O’Neill. This is a script that began in the workshop and was written by workshop member Jody O’Neill. It began with a group sound improvisation, which was then further developed mainly by Jody and fellow workshop member John McCarthy with contributions by others. It was ultimately performed by John and Jody during this year’s Cork Midsummer Festival. It was directed by workshop facilitator Jack Healy. While this presentation was reasonably formal in its mechanism of production, the process was constantly referred back to the principles with which it began.

The Workshop is due to resume again in October. If you are interested in getting involved in the workshop, please e-mail theatremakers@gmail.com or call 086-0662705.

Workshop Goals.

The Goals of the workshop are:

1. To develop a theatre which has the actors’ art at its centre.
2. To examine acting as an art in its own right

AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE WORKSHOP YOU WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY;

* To develop a sense of personal aesthetic as an actor, independent of casting and
production mechanisms.
* To consider performance as the essential activity of the theatre and acting as its essential art.
* To develop a sense of distinction between the two and to become proficient in both.
* To consider pursuing theatre art from a position of autonomy as an actor and to explore modes of creative collaboration with other artists accordingly.

If you are a sometimes working actor, or aspiring to that state and are interested in participating, contact

JACK HEALY AT 021-4504501
086-0662705
OR E-MAIL: jackohealy@gmail.com

Q. What instrument does Lisa play?
A. Saxophone.

Q. What character in the Simpsons would be likely to say; “Release the Dogs!”
A. Mr. Burns.

Q. What is Bart and Lisa’s favourite TV programme?
A. Itchy and Scratchy.

Q. Itchy and Scratchy are a cat and a mouse. Which is which?
A. Itchy is the mouse.

Q. When Homer proposes to Marge, what does he use for a ring?
A. An onion ring.

Q. The Simpsons are put in the “witness protection programme” and take on a new family name. What name?
A. The Thompsons.

Q. Why are the Simpsons put in the “witness protection programme”?
A. Because someone is trying to kill Bart.

Q. Who wants to kill Bart?
A. Side Show Bob.

Q. What does Side Show Bob have written on his t-shirt?
A. Die Bart Die.

Q. When Bart is baby sitting Maggie, she crawls out of the house, into the family car and drives away, eventually crashing the car. What is Bart’s punishment?
A. He is not allowed to see the Itchy and Scratchy Movie.

Q. What’s Maggie’s first word?
A. Daddy.

Q. Why does Homer go on a diet?
A. Because he gets stuck in the water chute at Mount Splashmore.

Q. Marge is sentenced to thirty days in prison. What is her crime?
A. Shoplifting.

Q. What wild animal do the inhabitants of Springfield kill on ‘Whacking Day’?
A. The snake.

Q. On stage during the Krusty show, Bart trips over a prop, nearly causing a major accident. What does he say to make him famous?
A. I didn’t do it!

Q. Lisa plays with a doll invented by Stacy Lovell. What is the name of the doll?
A. Malibu Stacy.

Q. Lisa proposes that Lovell design a new doll based on Lisa. What is the name of this doll?
A. Lisa Lionheart.

Q. In the episode where Mr Burns is shot, why is Homer furious with him?
A. Mr. Burns can never remember Homer’s name.

Q. Who shot Mr. Burns?
A. Maggie.