565+ at Visual Centre of Contemporary Arts and The George Bernard Shaw Theatre Carlow July 16th 2011

Roisin McGarr, Artistic Director of The George Bernard Shaw Theatre in Carlow invited 565+ to Carlow July 16th and the evening turned out to a very memorable one for us with great attendance and a wonderful post show hosted by Local Councilor Walter Lacey. The marketing team at GBS, special thank to Miriam Roche, garnered great publicity for the event including a fantastic write up in The Irish Times by Syliva Thompson 'Love of Theatre Saved My Life'.

Victor and Gord/565+ Double Bill Mermaid Arts Centre Bray July 1st 2011

In July 2011 Nora Hickey M'Sichili the Artistic Director of Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray gave us the great opportunity to participate in the Synge Summer School by presenting 2 shows, 565+ and Victor and Gord at Mermaid. Hosted by Patrick Lonergan we participated in a post show discussion afterwards. Staff at the Mermaid were very welcoming and we had a great night. For the first time since our work in progress back in May 2010 Marie and I performed 565+ together. As well as Fintan Walsh and Patrick Lonergan the Theatre Scholars Jill Dolan and Stacy Wolf from Princeton University attended the performances. Jill has written about the evening in her blog 'The Feminist Spectator' and it is a great insight into both the evening and the two shows. Earlier that day the Summer School Students had read Victor and Gord, Ali and Michael (a previous incarnation of Victor and Gord) presented at Queer Notions Festival 2009 and published in Fintan Walsh's book 'Queer Notions'.

Victor and Gord at Kilkenny Arts Festival 2010

2010 was my first time in Kilkenny and I loved the city, loved the pubs, loved the festival. We were put up in great accomodation - Victor had her own suite - and we played 5 1pm shows at the back of Cleere's pub where they have a performance space including a stage. It was our first time on a raised stage and the playing space was smaller than we were used to but Ciaran O'Melia did a great job of re-jigging our design to suit the space. John and Brian behind the bar looked after us from the minute we arrived to the day we left and made a small fortune in orange cordials before the show.

We got a great crowd for our first show and after that we sold out completely, people stood at the sides, at the back, I had to climb up into the box to see the show. 1pm shows are great; the day and night are yours to do what you like with. The guys had about a 100 friends visit them from Dublin through the week and on the Wednesday we hosted a big bbq back in the house where Jay cooked up a storm. Kilkenny was good to us, the Festival was great to us. Can't wait to go back.