In 2016 the Sweet For Addicts theatre group premiered my play “Rebellion”.
You can read a review of it here.
Seeing your play performed for the first time is a nerve-jangling experience.
I paced up and down at the back of the theatre like an expectant father in a maternity hospital waiting room.
I needn’t have worried.
The theatre group absolutely smashed it.
Consequently, I was delighted when earlier this year the same folks reached out to me and asked if they could put on “Rebellion” again.
The Sweet For Addicts theatre group is a highly professional not for profit organisation.
They seek to use drama as a means of assisting people who have been affected by addiction.
When they put on my play “Flight of the Earls” in 2014 I knew I had stumbled upon a talented bunch.
That piece had been performed by two professional companies in Ireland yet these folk from Glasgow knocked it out of the park.
They even hired a professional accent coach.
In the end, even I was convinced that a lad reared on Clydeside had never left Donegal!
As a thank you I said I would write a play especially for them.
That was “Hame”, a play about a Glasgow Irish family living through the events of IndyRef 2014.
They performed that for the Glasgow St Patrick’s Festival in 2015.
Here is a review of that piece from Joyce McMillan.
Therefore, it was a no-brainer that we could collaborate for the centenary of the Easter Rising the following year.
They didn’t let me down.
So, next April, for three nights only, they will perform the piece in Websters theatre on Great Western Road.
One of the reasons I’m delighted about this is because what happened the last time.
The play was sold out four weeks before the curtain was raised!
Indeed, the theatre group had never known demand like it.
There wasn’t a ticket to be had for any of the six performances.
The director told me that it is usual for the actors to be dragooned into selling the briefs as well as learning their lines.
However, with “Rebellion” they didn’t need to do that.
Therefore, it was no surprise that they were inundated with people who had left it too late to get a ticket.
I was emailed by folk who mistakenly thought I had some influence over these events.
Sure, I’m just the fella that wrote the thing!
As of late last night when the link went live the sales had already started.
Almost immediately, the director emailed me with the news “tickets sold, 2 from Alexandria and 2 from Cambuslang!”
I tweeted that a ticket (£14) might be a very handy Christmas present for the Rebel in your life.
You can do that by contacting Sweet For Addicts here.
I hope that you see the show.
