An IT Sligo graduate has joined an elite group of writers including Dermot Bolger, Colum McCann and Joseph O’Connor, whose take on modern Ireland is about to be unveiled to the public in a unique theatrical event.
Ronan Geoghegan (23) a native of Aughacashel, Co Leitrim was one of 1,700 writers who answered the call last September when the Fishamble Theatre Company and The Irish Times invited people to pen “Tiny Plays for Ireland”. The brief was to write an original play about contemporary Ireland, no more than 600 words long, with a running time of no more than four minutes.
Geoghegan, who graduates from the Performing Arts course at IT Sligo in 2010, was one of the tiny minority whose work was selected for production. Just over two per cent of the 1,700 entries got the nod.
His work “A Life” will be among 25 “tiny plays” staged at the Project Arts Centre’s Space Upstairs from March 15th to 31st. The other successful plays will be produced there later in the year or at the start of 2013
“It is a thrill, especially when I see the other writers whose work was selected – people like Ardal O’Hanlon, Dermot Bolger and Maeve Binchy,” said the Leitrim man.
He described his play as “a one-man piece about a guy who is about to be hit by a car and who sees his life in flashbacks”.
When Fishamble launched the project it set out to “create a discussion, through theatre, about our country”, and new, emerging and established writers of any age were urged to participate.
“We received plays about birth, life, death, sex, travel, love, loss, landscape, travel, grief, climbing, falling, losing, winning, spirituality, carnality, fishing and everything in between”, according to the company which said the response exceeded all it expectations.
Ronan Geoghegan has been busy since he completed the four year degree Performing Arts programme and has been putting the education and training he got at the Institute to good use. “I did light design for Shane Connaughton’s play “The Pitch” which Moth Productions from Cavan brought to GAA clubs all around the country” he explained.
In 2010 he was in the cast of “Wish I Were Here” a very successful joint production between The Dock Arts Centre in Carrick on Shannon and IT Sligo Performing Arts Programme when it went to the ABSOLUT Fringe Festival in Dublin in 2010 .
And he has also been writing. “I have an idea for a full length play and I have also been working on short stories,” he revealed.
Ronan recently dropped back to the Institute to talk to the current batch of Performing Arts student about “A Life”.