Event
Outlandish Theatre Platform is theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital in Dublin (2016 – 2019). Their latest performance Nothing by participants of Open Theatre Practice is taking place as part of The Five Lamps Arts Festival on 10 March at Connolly House.
Residency at CWIUH
In 2016, Outlandish Theatre Platform was invited to become the first theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital (CWIUH) by former Master Professor Chris Fitzpatrick and CWIUH’s Master Sharon Sheehan. A three-year residency, the company is based at The Rita Kelly Theatre in the hospital campus. The remit of the residency is to make three installments in response to Dublin 8’s human and physical environment with CWIUH as the epicentre of a new diverse Ireland, titled ‘Mother Ireland’. Central to this residency is the active engagement of technical, management and medical staff and patients of the hospital in the participatory process, making new work as well as building socially and ethnically diverse audiences locally for it.
The first installment YOUtopia was performed at CWIUH’s Rita Kelly Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in 2016, inspired by the housing crisis and collaborating directly with participants affected by it. The second installment Megalomaniac, presented as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2016 at CWIUH was inspired by Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, and developed from qualitative interviews with a new Irish citizen, a Syrian woman of Palestinian origin who lives in Dublin 8. The final installment, Womb, developed in collaboration with OTP participants and hospital
staff, will be performed in autumn 2018.
Open Theatre Practice
Open Theatre Practice is the company’s latest initiative at CWIUH, a response to the request for purpose built workshops by community participants. OTP is a weekly one and a half hour workshop in which participants are invited to take part in the process of making new work in response to a theme, at the moment ‘NOTHING’. In a structured and facilitated way people write and perform their own mini performances. The participants are from the hospital community and from the surrounding area of Dublin 8, performing arts colleagues and other theatre practitioners.
NOTHNG at The Five Lamps Arts Festival
Nine performers make a stop on the way from the womb to the tomb and have a conversation about nothing. Nothing is a performance by participants of Open Theatre Practice, supported by CWIUH, the Department of Justice and Equality and Dublin City Council. The performance is taking place on Saturday 10 March at 7pm in Connolly House as part of The Five Lamps Arts Festival. For booking information visit the Eventbrite page.
Outlandish Theatre Platform
OT Platform was founded by Maud Hendricks and Bernie O’Reilly in 2010 to develop performance through innovative collaborations with interdisciplinary professional and community collaborators. Their approach is based on long-term research through qualitative interviews, sound and video recording, and performance experimentation, resulting in multiple artistic outcomes: short films, inter-media installations, off-site performances, and full-scale theatrical productions. OT Platform is committed to subverting stereotypes by representing deeply researched diverse and individual perspectives in Dublin 8, creating a polyphonic theatre spectacle that intentionally creates an uncanny experience for the audience.
