It’s that time of year again, when the second-year students of Trinity’s drama and theatre studies course undertakes their second-year production. The production involves every single honour or TSM member of the course in their second year and brings them together to direct, design and perform in a full-scale professional production. This year, like last year, the students will be collaborating with Sugarglass Theatre Company, formed under the roof of Trinity’s own Samuel Beckett Centre and which now produces pieces in theatres in New York.
The production this year will be 10 Out Of 12, a piece written by the exemplary Anne Washburn, famed for Mr Burns, (A Post-Electric Opera). I spoke with some of the members of the production this year, Colin Smith and Dom O’Brien, about the creation of the piece.
When discussing the creative process of the piece as a milestone of the course, Smith said: “It affords second years the opportunity to work on a professional standard production while being mentored by a team of industry professionals, allowing us to test ourselves and bring our practice up to industry standards, all within the dedicated learning.”
The year is split into teams dedicated to whichever role takes their interest most, with some students working closely with Marc Atkinson, resident director of Sugarglass, as directors and performers, others in the areas of stage management, stage, lighting and sound design, under the mentorship of the members of Sugarglass. “This has enabled a camaraderie among our year which I have not experienced before now. There is no resentment about the work we’re doing, as we’re doing it for each other”, O’Brien said.
The text itself examines a technical rehearsal of a theatre piece. “10 Out Of 12 shines light on the strained environment where these sorts of thing can, and do, happen by exhibiting a technical rehearsal, warts and all. Watching it, you will be given a chance to witness all of the individual and combined tensions that make theatre and art in general such a complex, and oft-problematic, collaborative struggle”, O’Brien said. The piece is increasingly relevant, he said, in the fall out from the allegations against Michael Colgan, the Gate Theatre director, and the wider #MeToo movement.
Overall, Smith and O’Brien feel positive about the piece: “This play has a number of fascinating layers. The framework of Sugarglass is there to support and strengthen the production in any possible way, but what we have been told from the beginning is that this show will be as good as we, the students, make it.”
It will certainly be one to see, with the students working for hours every day for their final month in College to create the piece. I cannot wait to see the final, inevitably astounding results.
The show runs from the April 10th to 14th at 7.30pm in the Samuel Beckett Theatre. The Saturday show is a matinee at 2.30pm.
