Ordinary Love

Wow what a week!  Sold out shows, standing ovations and really positive reaction to the performance of our play Ordinary Love in the Cork Arts Theatre on 19 and 20 March.   Thank you so much to our Director Sonya Mathews and the amazing cast: Kate, Alice, Barbara, Pauline, Rudie, Carol, Sonya and me!  And the fabulous crew who made it all run so smoothly, Paddy, Marie, Jamie and Catherine.  

I had such fun playing four very different characters:  the mother, sister, ex-girlfriend and one of the doctors.  It was challenging, especially managing to change costumes and charters so quickly between scenes, but I loved it.

The audiences were wonderful – they were engaged and responsive and so appreciative.  We had hoped that the play would appeal to a mixed audience, gay and straight alike, and it appears to have done so.  People responded with laughter and tears and more laughter to the love story, the relationships with family and friends and the various challenges which the play explored.

Cork Lesbian Play Opens this Week

Final rehearsals tomorrow before the opening of the new Cork lesbian play, Ordinary Love, in the Cork Arts Theatre on Wednesday 19 March 2014.   After all the hard work and rehearsals we are all excited, and a little nervous, about finally performing in front of an audience.  No pressure!!

      The play is basically a love story, with Sara looking back over key moments in her life and her relationship with her partner Clarissa.  In many ways it’s a universal love story, but it also explores some of the challenges that lesbians can sometimes have to deal with, in school, with our families, in society.

The play has been written collaboratively by the Linc Drama Group, drawing on our own experiences and the stories we wanted to tell.  There are too few plays, stories, films which are written, performed and directed by lesbian and bisexual women.  Lesbians and bisexual women are too often absent from and invisible in mainstream culture and when we do appear we are often distorted by misinformation, misinterpretation and stereotypes.  I would hope that this play will redress this in some little way and that it will resonate with audiences, queer and straight!

Lesbian Drama

Just two weeks to go to the performance of the new Cork Lesbian Play, Ordinary Love, in the Cork Arts Theatre.  Gay Community News have just published a version of my article about the play on their Outmost website.

http://theoutmost.com/entertainment/the-l-word-in-cork/

New Cork Lesbian Play

The drama group I am involved in will be performing our new play Ordinary Love in the Cork Arts Theatre on 19^th and 20^th March 2014.   

Ordinary Love is written, produced and directed by the Linc Drama Group. The drama group is facilitated by Sonya Mathews, a former robotics engineer (I’m serious!), who is a well-known actor, director and drama teacher.  Sonya started the group in April 2013 because she wanted to give women in the lesbian community a forum to express themselves, learn new skills and improve confidence and self-esteem.