A CHARITY WALK IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Actor’s bid to help theatre workers
Stephen Jones has established a good reputation in the theatrical world as an actor and writer. He was about to open his first show as a director with Stephen Brennan last week when the big shutdown struck.
Not one to sit around complaining, he wanted to get involved with the Tallaght Civic Theatre Relief Fund, that had raised almost €24,000 in four days to support theatre artists of all sorts, including actors and musicians, technicians and stage managers throughout the country who’ve lost their jobs because of Covid-19.
‘I was just trying to think of a way to keep the momentum going, but I wasn’t sure what to do,’ he tells me. Then he had the idea of a charity walk.
‘What if I walk the M50 theatre tour, from An Draíocht in Blanchardstown, taking in The Axis in Ballymun, The Pavilion in Dún Laoghaire and finishing back at The Civic in Tallaght? It’s about 46 kilometres, but I had done the Camino de Santiago walk from southern France to Spain two years ago, 799 kilometres in 30 days.
‘I thought, it’s something different for an actor to do, and people might pay a bit of attention to it.’
His inspiration came from Twitter, where former League of Ireland footballer Ronan Byrne was raising money for the Irish Cancer Society by visiting all the League of Ireland grounds he had played on around Dublin – a walk of about 44 kilometres.
‘I’m from Tallaght myself, so I contacted The Civic, then I got on to Ronan Byrne, told him I was stealing his idea, and he was very supportive.’
The Civic agreed right away. ‘Four hundred people had applied when they looked to distribute the grant, but they had to stop when they got to 50. The €25,000 collected had already run out.’
They’re hoping to get to €50,000 and, with the help of Stephen’s walk, they’re on course to do it. ‘In the great scheme of things, it’s not life-changing money, but for some people it gives another month in your flat or being able to do your shopping.’
The Civic liaised with the artistic directors of all the theatres he’d be visiting, and they were all on board. ‘I put out a video to promote it and we came up with the hashtag ‘Camino for theatre’. Sinéad Crowley from RTÉ met me at Ballymun and we did a quick video that made it to the RTÉ News on their Twitter.
‘The money comes in through a Civic Go Fund Me page and I redirected people to the link on The Civic website.
‘I did the walk on March 20, all in one go, with a few breaks along the way. I left Blanchardstown at 7.30am, and reached Tallaght just before 6pm.
‘I did the Camino two years ago because I needed some head space and I had a gap between two shows. I wasn’t a hiker, or an outdoors kind of person, but it was one of the best things I ever did,’ said Stephen.
Walking the Camino made such an impression on him that he says he would do it again in a heartbeat. ‘It had a healing, spiritual quality about it.’
nDonations for the fund can still be made through The Civic Theatre website civictheatre.ie
‘I was just trying to think of a way of keeping the momentum going’