Roscommon Arts Centre’s Hatch Residencies will take place both on and off-site later this year. Part of our ongoing Branar : Connect Initiative, invitations were extended by Roscommon Arts Centre to two of Branar Theatre Company’s Tiny Show participants to spend a two-week paid, mentored residency at Roscommon Arts Centre with access to the centre’s resources to “hatch” their Tiny Shows, including a work-in-progress sharing.

Branar’s Tiny Shows/Seóanna Bídeach initiative offers artists & theatre makers time and space to explore & develop new skills, new roles and new work for young audiences in a developmental context over a week-long residency at their space in Galway.

The first of our 2020 “HATCHERS” is Claire Mullane, a theatre director and dramaturg with a BA in Drama & Theatre Studies and Music and a PGCE in Early Childhood Education. She is one of four artists on the Druid FUEL Artist Development Programme 2019/2020. She is Festival Dramaturg for the Galway Theatre Festival and Theatre Education Co-ordinator for the Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone.

Her show “Baby Weather” first came to life as part of Branar’s 2019 Tiny Shows programme and is now being further developed during Claire’s hatch residency with a view to sharing with audiences later this year.

Our second “HATCHER” is Cathal McGuire,  a Dublin-based theatre maker, dramaturg and facilitator. Under the company name Game Theory, he makes performances for all ages about the mysteries of the contemporary world. These include Always Alone Together (Dublin Fringe Festival) and Welcome To The Memory Palace (Scene + Heard and Live Collision festivals.) In addition to his shows for general audiences, he also creates work with and for young people in collaboration with leading arts and youth organisations across the country. Most recently, Cathal directed MOOP, a show about playfulness and discovery for audiences aged 5+ as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival’s Young Radicals strand, where it was nominated for Best Ensemble.

For his Hatch residency, Cathal is continuing development of “Maggie’s Big Film”, a show about movies, loneliness and self-discovery for an audience aged 7+. Inspired by his own childhood love of film, the project uses a combination of theatre, storytelling and object manipulation to create the world of the play and the cinematic universe of the young protagonist’s imagination. Maggie’s Big Film was first developed through Pavilion Theatre’s Studio Space Award and Branar Theatre’s Tiny Shows residency, and is supported by Cathal’s participation in Baboró Festival’s Pathways to Production programme.

Keep your eyes peeled as we hope to share these two shows with you in Octobr as part of our re-imagined Lollipops Children’s Festival

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland