Tag Archives: Corn Exchange

October 20, 2012 · 12:31 pm

Winter Workshops

Two excellent workshop/classes starting in Dublin next month:

Freedom to Express What Lies Beneath with Actors Training Ireland

Voice and Body Class Inspired by Roy Hart Techniques with Helena Walsh
November 7th to 12th December
Time: 7 – 9pm
Cost: 150 euro
Venue: To Be Confirmed (Dublin City Centre)

This workshop will be a class of play – stretching language to the limits of human voices:
◆  work on ‘wrestling’ text until we’ve squeezed every possible meaning out of it
◆  work on timing, volume, pitch and colour in a playful and surprising way,
◆  moving from sustained sound into the spoken voice to discover what is revealed inside.

Participants are asked to bring a monologue, preferably from Shakespeare – to open up, tear apart and enter in a new way.
This is a highly physical, and we hope, invigorating class. Focus is on the ensemble moving to the individual voice.
Please contact us on: 086 8548885 or e-mail actortrainingireland@gmail.com for further information.

Commedia Workshops with Corn Exchange

Annie Ryan invites you to come for five days of intense and rather terrifying improvisational play with the Corn Exchange ensemble.

Nov 5th – 9th
Leinster Cricket Club, Rathmines
9am to 5 pm
Cost: €225.00

Please send a CV or if we know you already, an update of recent work to hello@cornexchange.ie. Closing date for applications is Thursday, 25 Oct.

Please note that places at the Workshops are strictly limited to 16. Successful applicants will be notified by Halloween.

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July 21, 2011 · 11:32 pm

First Look: Absolut Fringe

The launch of this year’s Absolut Fringe Festival programme took place on Wednesday evening in the brand new Festival Club venue – Top of the Town on Parnell Square East (opposite the Gate Theatre and up a bit). After a few short speeches and a bit of free vodka, we got out hands on the sleek black programme! As usual, there is a whole heap of wonderful stuff there and it’s all on the website as well. I like that they have kept the same web design as last year – I like the ‘Like This / See These’ suggestions on the right hand side and the categories section is really helpful. The whole thing is organised in a useful, helpful way and I like that.

And if anyone is still unsure where to start with this massive programme, I’ve picked 10 things that I would like to see. I’m not saying that these are the best things in the festival, this is just my top ten at this moment in time!

1. Man of Valour because I love Corn Exchange and this got some great reviews at the Cork Midsummer festival last month.

2. Twenty Ten for it’s scope and ambition. THEATREclub will put all of 2010 on stage, two months a night for 6 nights and then perform the whole year again in a 6 hour performance on Saturday morning.

3. Do You Read Me? by Talking Shop Ensemble and Shaun Dunne. I loved their last show I Am a Homebird (It’s very hard) and as a life-long sceptic, I’m interested in this show about mediums and clarvoyents.

4. Where Do I Start? I saw a half-hour verison of this at The Theatre Machine Turns You On and really liked it. I’m interested to see how it works as an extended show and as it says in the programme, Nyree is “one fifth of multi ABSOLUT Fringe award winners The Company” which is reason enough to see this show!

5. The Year of Magical Wanking. I love thisispopbaby and this got rave reviews at Queer Notions late last year. I think it’s another brave, ambitious show and has the wonderful warning Contains explicit adult themes and language. I love a show with language!

6. Autobiographer by Melanie Wilson because I saw Iris Brunette in 2009 and loved it. It was a weird and wonderful show that has stayed with me for two years.

7. In My Bed because I like one-woman shows and shows in weird places. This one takes place in a car park.

8. Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You because that’s a great title. And it’s another one-woman show. There’s quite a few of those in this year’s Fringe!

9. Love Songs for Losers because it’s on in The Stag’s Head which seems like the perfect venue for a show set in a grimy karaoke bar. And they were giving out lollipops at the launch!

10. Pop Ceili. I caught the last two songs by these guys last year and they were brilliant! I want to see more of them this year.

That’s my 10 for the moment. Booking is already open on the website and if you book this week with the Early Bird code you can get 10% off! And then you have something to look forward to this September.

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November 9, 2010 · 12:29 am

Corn Exchange

The fabulous, wonderful Corn Exchange have two shows on in Dublin this month.

Happy Days is on at the Project until November 20th and then Freefall starts in the Abbey on November 23rd.

I saw Happy Days at the Abbey with Fiona Shaw as Winnie a couple of years ago. It was part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. I am happy to see it again because I think it’s a play that probably improves with repeated viewings. It’s Beckett so it’s not surprising that it’s a bit odd. The couple sitting next to me left at the interval, thinking the play was over. They happened to be having a coffee in the foyer when the announcement came on to say that the second half was starting soon.

In an almost perfect inverse I saw Freefall at the Project as part of last year’s Dublin Theatre Festival. Since then they have been to Edinburgh and Mexico (I love the photos from that trip!). I thought it was a beautiful show and will probably be dragging a few people along to see it in the Abbey.

You should go see both because Corn Exchange are a wonderful company who a pretty much guaranteed to give you a great night’s entertainment, and be moving and thought-provoking too. And if you are still not convinced, go see Happy Days on Wednesday when all tickets are only €12 and see what you think!

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August 28, 2010 · 4:15 pm

Corn Exchange in Edinburgh with Freefall

Corn Exchange, one of my favourite Irish theatre companies, are currently performing Freefall at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. Freefall is their beautiful and moving show from last year’s Ulster Bank Theatre Dublin Festival. It’s a small story about an ordinary man but told with much compassion, gentle humour and a little bit of silliness. The narrative weaves and bobs over the course of the play, time and places change quickly and the cast play a number of different characters (or the same characters at different times in their life) but these transitions seem natural within the structure of the play and the audience never gets left behind. There is a lot going on in the play but Corn Exchange make it look easy!

I loved Freefall when I saw it at the Project last October and it is getting a lot of love from the people of Edinburgh as well. There have been 4 star reviews from Fringe Guru and The List, and a nomination for the Carol Tambor Award. (I follow Corn Exchange on Twitter and Facebook and they keep me up-to-date on these things!).

Freefall is at the Traverse until August 29 and back in Dublin at the Abbey on 23 November – 4 December. I’m looking forward to seeing it again then!

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August 15, 2010 · 9:59 pm

Dublin Theatre Festival (again!)

The launch party for the Absolut Fringe Festival is tomorrow evening, when they will unveil the programme for this year’s festival. The Fringe itself is only four weeks away – exciting!! But before we get all swept away with the Fringe madness, I thought I would have another look at the Dublin Theatre Festival.

A show that I am now really looking forward to seeing (if I can get tickets – on sale Wednesday at 9.30am!) is The Smile Off Your Face. It’s been getting great reviews at the Kilkenny Arts Festival and it’s sounds a little odd and interesting – the audience member is blindfolded and put into a wheel-chair before they enter the “performance”. Ontroerend Goed have three shows in the Festival and they are all a bit odd. Internal is performed to just five people at a time and has the warning “contains nudity”! The Game of You just sounds a bit tricksy from it’s blurb. All these performances are approximately 30 minutes long and cost €15 each. I don’t see it on the website, but the paper programme says that you can book a ticket for all three for €36 which is a little bit of a saving.

Personally I think that’s still a lot of money, but probably worth it for the experience!

The Festival does have some free work-in-progress performances and live art pieces, buried under the Special Events tab on the website.

The In Development strand has new plays from Corn Exchange and Fishamble. Sadly, for me and anyone else who works full time, a lot of them are during the day time.

Project Brand New is also there with The Magic If… on Saturday 16th October in The New Theatre, shows are running hourly from 2pm – 7pm. There’s no advance booking, you just pay €2 at the door.

Amanda Coogan’s Yellow is on in St. Mary’s Abbey (off Capel Street) from September 30 – October 5th. It’s a durational live performance and audience members can come and go throughout the performance which is between 6pm – 10pm each night. Each evening it will be performed by a different woman. And it’s free!

I really would recommend getting a paper programme rather than relying on the website. They are available free of charge from the Festival offices on East Essex Street, just down from the Project, or from the Abbey and Gate theatres. You can also request one from the website.

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February 21, 2010 · 5:58 pm

Workshops and classes

I didn’t see that many shows in the Dublin Theatre Festival but I did get to see Freefall by Corn Exchange and I loved it. I like Corn Exchange a lot and I was raging when I missed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof last year so I had pretty high expectations for their new show. I wasn’t disappointed. It was fantastic; wonderful actors and a great story, beautifully told. I found it a bit of an emotional roller-coaster of a show and felt drained by the end of it but there was still some very funny moments and a few moments which were painfully, tragically funny. I don’t know if they are touring the show, but if you get a change to see it – I highly recommend it.

I did a workshop with Corn Exchange about seven or eight years ago and I really enjoyed it. It was three evenings classes and we got to build our own Commedia del’Arte character each evening, picking out clothes for them to wear and painting on own mask. We spent the rest of the class creating scenes with our characters.

I have been dying to do another workshop with them ever since but whenever they came around, I either didn’t have the money or I couldn’t get time off work or I was in England. Even just a few months ago, I didn’t have enough days leave left to take the week off work and go and do yoga every morning instead. Maybe 2010 will finally be the year that I get to do another Corn Exchange workshop!

At the moment, I’m doing a voice class with Actors Training Ireland, who I would also highly recommend. I did a weekend workshop with them in July (it included voice, acting and moment work, as well as some singing). I enjoy it and got a lot out of it. It’s not really a beginners class; the aim is to remind you about the things you already know and maybe pick up a few new skills. Acting is something that you need to practice but unlike other performance arts like playing an instrument or singing, it’s very difficult to practise on your own. You need other people, you need an audience. Going to class let’s me practice and remind myself what I’m trying to do. It also helps me to feel like an actor, even though I spend all day in an office.

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