Michelle ReadPlaywright & Theatre Maker - Production History

‘Game Over’ Dublin Youth Theatre, 2014

Game OverA comedy for teenagers about death and suicide.

Titch, Mel and Nicky don’t know each other, but they’ve one thing in common; they’ve all woken up in a strange place and they’re not sure what the hell is going on. Mel was on a night out with her boy-racer boyfriend and it looks like they might have crashed. Nicky was shaking the vending machine at work and it may just have fallen on top of her! And Titch? Well, Titch didn’t have a choice in the matter. When Stormcry appears, they think he’ll have all the answers, but he’s more confused than they are. Game Over is an existential comedy about death, saying goodbye and maybe second chances.

http://www.nayd.ie/resources/find-a-play/

‘The Nation’s Assets’

with Kate Brennan and Don Wycherly

Tiny Plays for IrelandFishamble New Play Co,

Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 2012

 “Michelle Read’s depiction of the rise and fall of the economy as a night of

spectatularly awkward sex in The Nation’s Assets: “I think I’m

overextended.” groans the superb (Don) Wycherly.”

The Irish Times, 22nd March 2012

 “The Nation’s Assets sexes up finance

in a way that has to be seen to be believed and gives a whole new

meaning to the expression the country is f**ked.”

Evening Herald, 29th March 2012

Deadly Drama for D24Eight new plays written with and for primary school children by Michelle Read

Playmaking with primary school children, 2012

Toxic by Michelle Read

Gaiety School of ActingGraduation Show Commission 2011

In 2004 Britney sang Toxic and we blagged our way into clubs with fake IDs and sculled pints and Bacardi Breezers and the future was rosy, so we danced our arses off and sucked the faces off each other and worried about the kind of things that kids worry about. And then, while our backs were turned, while we were busy growing up… I mean f***k’s sake people, look at the state of the place!

Toxic is a fast-paced, jump-cut style play set in contemporary post-boom Dublin. Performed by an ensemble of eighteen young actors and including a karaoke-style pop vibe, the play speculates about betrayal and the interaction between public ethics and personal morality.

“…there was so much energy, like before a storm; the air was crackling with it. And I thought, we’re all just animals, there is no right and wrong.”

Hector (puppet dog) in the drug factory, Toxic, Project Arts Centre, GSA, 2011

Mike & Karen, Work-in-Progress, 2010by Michelle Read in collaboration with Mike Wells & Karen McLachlan

Mike & Karen have been friends for over twenty years. Their relationship is the real thing, but are they? Scripted from edited interviews and performed by the real Mike and Karen along with two professional actors, the piece was a performance experiment exploring notions of authenticity and the use of lived experience in performance. Soho Theatre, London.

Created as part of my Masters dissertation, ‘Presence and Authenticity: An investigation into the process and practice of working with people as both subject and performer in theatre of the real.’

Worksong Work-in-Progress, 2009A collaboration between theatre-maker Michelle Read and composer Fionnuala Conway. The performance used verbatim conversations with a variety of people about work. Actors spoke (or “channelled”) the edited audio via headsets and the stories were punctuated with sung compositions inspired by the interviews and the participants’ speech patterns.

Actor Karen Egan “channels” participant Nuala Rothery.

I visited Berlin as a schoolgirl in the early eighties. The Wall was a big concept to take in as a teenager, but the fact that I saw it stayed with me and I remember feeling both overwhelmed and challenged by the fact of it.

Snakelight was inspired by the East/West divide in Berlin and by the idea of alternative histories.

You Are HereLIVING SPACE THEATRE, Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, 2008

written by Ioanna Anderson, directed by Tara Derrington, produced by Michelle Read

You Are Here – DTF, 2008 – brought the audience inside a modern Dublin apartment where characters were seen by night or by day in two separate but linked plays. The work was extremely intimate, with a maximum audience of fifteen people per show, and offered glimpses of the lives of some of the apartment’s occupants at different times in its history. These layers of habitation overlapped as the spectator moved through the space witnessing highly intimate moments and exploring the apartment’s artefacts and ghost voices.

Press“…few plays will be able to match Living Space Theatre Group’s You Are Here in terms of originality and sheer invention” Irish Daily Mail “the set and sound design are quite ingenious… clever, interactive and different” Dublin Metro “…the intimacy of the production is invigorating.” Sunday Tribune “…characters saunter past each other without acknowledgement – as though the apartment holds their stories in its rooms like distinct, separate memories.” Irish Times “At moments it does feel as if you’ve been spirited right inside other lives” Irish Independent  “…the emotional texture of the relationships is hooked on hot contemporary anxieties surrounding immigration, property and the difference between house and home” irish theatre magazine  “…the theatre tends to obscure the fact that it is, at base, an act of voyeurism. This production celebrates that.” Sunday Tribune

The Other Sideby Michelle Read, with Tara Derrington & Natalie Stringer, 2003

The Other Side is about subjective experience and how we determine our own identity. The play is set in a school building commandeered by the military in a turbulent African country (never specified). Rioting has broken out and the characters, Dee and Kate, are being detained for their own safety, but against their will in separate, adjacent rooms. The two characters are strangers who strike up a conversation through the wall and are forced into an uneasy camaraderie by the extreme situation.  The “wall” that divides the characters continues through the audience, so that the spectator shares the subjective viewpoint of the particular character they are watching. Thus one audience is split in two by a divider, each side seeing one performer and hearing the other.

The Other SideWritten by Michelle Read - Directed by Tara Derrington

Co-created by Tara Derrington, Michelle Read and Natalie StringerA READCO Production

Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 2003 

“The cleverness lies in the interplay of lies and truth, the exploitation of our unconscious tendency to use visual information to check the veracity of what we are told.”

 “raises, in a gentle, humorous and utterly unpretentious way, interesting questions about knowledge and

language, reality and representation, fact and fiction”The Irish Times

   “the threads of the tale are worked through carefully and expertly, meaning there is never a glitch, never a

lapse as the intricacies…are revealed” 

“This is experimental theatre at its best. Holding onto the successful elements of the conventional story based theatre, this show pushes boundaries without losing its audience in the process”

The Sunday Tribune 

“not being able to see the other actress lends an air of increased suspense” 

“A brilliant and stimulating night out, The Other Side takes you well beyond conventional theatrical constraints.”

The Irish Examiner  

“To engage with a moving, humorous and stylish piece of theatre while at the same time to become aware of questions like these, and to walk away still questioning, still debating the truth of what has been seen, is

a rare and deeply satisfying experience.” Irish Theatre Magazine

Síle Nic Chonaonaigh & Natalie Stringer in rehearsals for The Other Side

Play About My Dad An Autobiographical performance by Michelle Read, 2004

“Although it is funny, warm, and even strangely detached there is an underlying rawness to this simple human story…”

 

“…Read delivers a gem of a little work that speaks to us for long after we have left it behind.”

The Sunday Tribune  

“It’s a charming, well-observed piece… and it is not going to far to say that the seeming artlessness is very much the art that conceals art.

The Sunday Independent  

“Read carries the whole thing off with nerveless assurance.”The Irish Times

Play About My Dad - Press

The idea for the environment was to create an enclosed space onto which we could project in all four directions – Play About My Dad

Audience enter and sit in and around the space – Play About My Dad

Living Space – READCO, 2001 An experimetnal show which explored early immersive techniques with performance improvisation and audience interaction.  Developed throughout June 2001 in a Georgian House in Dublin, the piece was created using a collaborative devising process with performers Brendan Dempsey, Natalie Stringer, Kevin Gildea, Stella Feehily, Karen Scully and Michelle Read with director Christopher White and writer Pom Boyd. Performances happened over five nights and the audience was invited into a strange B&B to discover some odd communal living practices!  “The novel thing about this experiment is the blurring of the lines between performance and reality… the performances are universally excellent, with frequently hilarious results.”RTE ONLINE

Human Stories 1-6 were six fully improvised playlets, performed as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival 2000 at Bewley’s Café Theatre, Grafton Street. The shows were an experiment in long-form improvisation (play length improvised narratives) and were part of READCO’s ongoing interest in developing performance improvisation skills.   “The cast all produce very strong characterisations… the rough hewn style and structure is really funny, fresh and original.”EVENING HERALD “Taking hints on characterisation from the audience… these talented performers… are clearly having a ball.”THE IRISH TIMES

Saint Aguna’sBewleys Café TheatreREADCO2000

Saint Aguna’sSt. Aguna’s was performed at Bewley’s Café Theatre in February 2000 and ran for three weeks, with a rotating cast of thirteen and a constantly changing show. The piece was created by the artistic team and performers and was the company’s first experiment in performance improvisation, leading to the development of further improvisation-based

work including Human Stories 1-6 and Living Space. 

“The cast double-jobbing as nuns and villagers perform with gusto… priceless.”DUBLIN EVENT GUIDE

 “A plucky adventure in improvised comedy.”

SUNDAY TRIBUNE 

“St. Aguna’s is a brave, madcap concept… with enough highlights, energy and innovation to make me take the company up on their challenge and go again.”

SUNDAY BUSINESS POST 

“The co-ordination is so good that there is a suspicion of miracles about it… very funny and original.”

THE IRISH TIMES

Natalie Stringer & Ciaran McMahon in

Romantic FrictionREADCO1997 - 1999

Romantic FrictionBy Michelle Read.

Andrews Lane Theatre, Dublin, Edinburgh Festival (Fringe First winner) and Irish tour 1998, Tristan Bates Theatre, London 1999

 Tristan Bates Theatre, London, 1999

“an irresistible riot of warmth, wit and skill”Time Out

 Edinburgh Fringe & Irish Tour, 1998

“...one of the finest and funniest plays of the Festival....sharply written and hugely entertaining...” The Scotsman

 “Fast, furious and humorous the show is a delightful trawl through pulp fiction.”

The Irish Times 

Dublin Fringe Festival production, 1997“Superb acting and direction showcase Read’s play to brilliant effect”

Hot Press, Dublin

“A rollicking parody of bodice-ripping pulp novels.”The Sunday Times

“...one of the most pleasurable pieces I’ve seen.”Evening Herald, Dublin

The Lost Letters Of A Victorian Lady

by Michelle Read

Bewleys Café Theatre 1996 (Restaged by Bewleys 2004)

The Lost Letters Of A Victorian Lady – Reviews 2004

Bewleys Café Theatre, Dublin, 2004“an unashamed romp; it also has a strong satiric edge… very funny

and clever.” The Sunday Independent

 “Sharp, pacey comedy” “an endless flow of hilarity.”

The Irish Times 

“Michelle Read proves her worth as a comic writer in this superbly original romp… a blistering hour of comedy.”

The Sunday Tribune 

“Clever and cheeky, the pen of Michelle Read has created a quirky gem of a piece.

What’s On Where online listings and reviews

https://issuu.com/michelleread/docs/romantic_friction___other_plays_by_michelle_read/2