This Is TV Greystones

Latest press release from Greystones Players, issued on Friday, June 20th 2020…

Wicklow’s premiere community drama group, Greystones Players, will present an online series of 13 reflective, comedic and dramatic vignettes in response to Ireland’s lockdown which has put a halt to their regular rehearsals.

Presented in partnership with the Whale Theatre, Greystones Players’ Lockdown InterActs comprises of 13 short videos, two of which will be shared on the Whale Theatre’s Facebook page every day at 12 noon beginning tomorrow, Saturday 20th June and running until Friday 26th June.

With no less than 7 major productions to their name since their establishment in 2016, Greystones Players has long since been a firm favourite and regular feature in the Whale Theatre calendar. As a non-profit community theatre group, Greystones Players aims to bring people together from Greystones and environs to work collaboratively on making great drama, and to enrich the cultural life of our town and area.

Since 2016, the group has presented sold-out performances of iconic stage works including Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (2017), The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge (2018) and Seán O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock (2019), all under the skilled and insightful direction of Aideen Walton.

When the lockdown was announced, Greystones Players was in the midst of rehearsing for their May production at the Whale Theatre and physical rehearsals were called to a halt as the theatre was also forced to shut their doors, unsure of when they may open again.

For Greystones Players, the realisation gradually dawned that, along with all the other suspended life norms, activity in the studios and theatre would not resume for some months and, if the group was going to continue, they would have to find a very different way forward. Enter Zoom stage left, and Lockdown InterActs was born!

Director Aideen Walton describes the creative process behind Greystones Players’ new project. “A number of us got together for weekly GP Zoom meetings and decided that rather than try to replicate something that would happen on stage, we would explore the possibilities of both Zoom and video. I challenged the members to write, perform and record their own work, responding to this extraordinary period in any way they wished, either solo or collaboratively.

“Over the last two months of writing, recording, sharing, tweaking, much laughter and a lot of support, a series of comic, dramatic, meditative and reflective vignettes emerged. Here are some of the many and varied responses the Players have created. We hope you enjoy watching them as much as we have enjoyed making them.”

Follow the Whale Theatre on Facebook here and tune in every day at 12 noon for a new video, fresh from the kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and lockdown headspaces of Greystones Players.