Four artists take ‘Time at The Well’
Four locally based artists have been given short artist residencies at the Hawk’s Well Theatre, taking place this year. Performing artists Treasa Nealon, Miriam Needham, Michele Feeney and Kellie Hughes will all spend ‘ Time at the Well’ this year. Time at the Well provides workspace and stipend to each of the four creative practitioners.
Treasa Nealon has a BA Honours Degree in 2014 in Performing Arts in IT Sligo and has worked with several theatre companies including Pangur Ban Productions, Arro Abu Theatre Company & Splodar Theatre Company. She has had several short plays performed in Ireland, the UK and the US. She took part in Flash Theatre (write / produce a short play in 24 hrs) as a writer for the Galway Theatre Festival in 2017. Treasa co-founded the award-winning The Rabbit’s Riot Theatre Company with Sonia Norris. They have produced over eight shows (five of which she wrote) since the company formed.
They also co-produced the North-West’s first LGBT+ Theatre Festival, ‘Where We Are Now’ in June 2017 and hold monthly Scratch Nights, where writers in the North-West get a chance to showcase their new writing to audiences. At the 2017 Galway Fringe Festival, they won an award for their work in LGBT+ Theatre.
Treasa intends to use the residency to work on ‘Fever Fields’ - a performance piece exploring the cholera outbreak in Sligo in 1832. She plans to share the piece in a rehearsed reading at the end of the residency to get feedback from the audience on the performance. Treasa was delighted to hear about the residency and commented: “This residency will give me the invaluable time to work on a performance piece exploring the cholera outbreak in Sligo in 1832. I was inspired by Charlotte Thornely’s experiences during the outbreak and I found that her language painted striking visuals that deserve to be captured on stage. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, it is rare that one gets the chance to explore a passion project with such a support and lack of guilt! “
Miriam Needham is a Lecoq-trained theatre-maker from Manorhamilton who has worked with Blue Raincoat, Branar, Splodar, Emerald Isle, Tribe Theatre, and Helium Arts. Recent work includes ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Play’ as part of Beckett Hazelwood. She has also written and performed her own work, such as ‘Pinhole’ (Moving Bodies Festival, 2016) and ‘Love Underwater’ (Scene+Heard 2017).
As a theatre and movement facilitator she has worked with Jigsaw Youth Advisory Panel, Moontour, Foróige, and Óga Yoga. She sometimes volunteers as a performer and facilitator with The Flying Seagull Project, a charity that bring play and laughter to children in refugee camps through clowning, circus, music and magic. She is fluent in Irish and also speaks French and Spanish. Her love for languages and the spoken word drove her to spend two years studying Physical Theatre at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where she discovered the most interesting mode of communication there is: the universal language of the body!
Miriam plans to use the residency to work on a theatre piece, currently titled ‘How to Live Completely’ which she plans to develop into a full-length play. Miriam commented: “I have some ideas in my head bursting to be explored so its fantastic to get the time and space to pursue and develop ideas and potential structures. I want to be able to refine and define the text, structure and narrative of the piece. Ideally I would love to use the structure of this residency to arrange a rehearsed reading of the play and receive feedback.”
Michele Feeney has performed for over 20 years in musical theatre and as a professional singer.
She was a singer and keyboard player with a touring Irish band for almost 10 years. Michele works as a vocal coach and a professional singer for weddings and has worked for the Hawk’s Well as a choir master for the popular Sligo Sings programme and for Roscommon Arts Centre’s social singing evenings. Michele will use the residency to explore her song writing skills and already has a catalogue of songs ready for some work and production which she plans to launch as an EP.
Michele says that she was, for once, lost for words when she heard the news that she had been selected for the residency. “This for me is an opportunity to take the precious time needed to work on my musical projects. I have a book in me, but not a novel, it is a book of songs which I have never had the opportunity to solely focus on. This short residency for me will afford me the time and resources to do this! “
Kellie Hughes is a director, actor and theatre-maker. Recent theatre work includes the adaptation and direction of Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s Death at Intervals (Galway International Arts Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival) co-direction of Samuel Beckett’s Lessness (Galway International Arts Festival, Barbican London International Beckett Festival, Commencez Paris Beckett Festival) and co-direction of Olwen Fouéré’s award winning riverrun (world tour).
Kellie was an ensemble performer with Blue Raincoat Theatre for seven years, collaborating on the creation of new works, interpreting modern classic texts and directing on occasion, most notably the Yeats Project in 2009/10. Interested in the expressive potential of the body, Kellie wrote and performed two shows for the Science Museum, London- Art, Science and the Moving Body and The Brain and the Body (Televised B.B.C). She trained at the Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique, London and the Centre Artistique International Roy Hart, Maleragues. Kellie holds a first class BA (Hons) in Theatre and History and an MA (Hons) in Physical Theatre.
She is currently Director in Residence at UCD. Kellie is delighted to spend ‘ Time at the Well’ this year. “I’m absolutely delighted to receive a Hawk’s Well Theatre short residency and spend time at the Well! I have three projects at varying stages of development that I have been trying to find time for so it’s a real gift to be offered space and time to focus exclusively on my personal creative work.”
For all further information on these residencies and their resulting projects, keep an eye on the Hawk’s Well Theatre’s website, www.hawkswell.