INTERVIEW: Origin 1st Irish Festival goes online, offering opportunity for Ireland residents to enjoy
Photo: Origin 1st Irish’s new curators are Mick Mellamphy and Sarah Street. Photo courtesy of Origin 1st Irish / Provided by press rep with permission.
In previous years, the Origin 1st Irish Festival was an in-person theatrical event for New Yorkers; however, this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival has shifted to an all-virtual setting, which allows theatergoers around the world, including in Ireland, to enjoy some of these unique presentations.
Audiences can expect new work from both well-known and emerging theater artists, according to press notes. Theater companies from Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United States will be represented.
At the helm this year are co-curators Mick Mellamphy and Sarah Street, two actors who have been associated with Origin 1st Irish for quite some time. They have replaced longtime curator, and festival founder, George C. Heslin, who has been tapped to lead the New York Irish Center, according to a press release.
There are many highlights to this year’s festival, which runs throughout the remainder of January. Grace Odumosu, an actor, will lead a discussion on the unique contributions of Black and multiracial Irish artists. Another panel discussion will specifically look at the challenges of producing theater amidst a pandemic. The Irish tunes of Tin Pan Alley will also be the subject for a panel.
Of the theatrical offerings, About Face Ireland will present Transatlantic Tales, a series of performances performed on Zoom, each featuring an actor from the United States and an actor from Ireland. Another highlight: the Irish Repertory Theatre production of Darren Murphy’s The Gifts You Gave to the Dark.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Mellamphy and Street about this year’s virtual festival. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How challenging has it been to curate a theater festival during a global pandemic?
STREET: I think Michael and I have tried to use the virtual nature of this year’s festival to our advantage. Though of course we are all missing the physical intimacy and inimitable magic of the theatre space. We tried to harness the power of the virtual medium to expand the mission as well as the audience of the festival. That has been the ultimate challenge — how to create content that people want to tune into at home.
MELLAMPHY: I certainly echo Sarah’s sentiment that we were able to find advantages in curating an online festival. Like many have experienced this past year working remotely, being a virtual festival lent itself to this new way of working. The greatest challenges I found [were] the unknown elements. This being our first foray into a project like this, there were many lessons learned in real time as we were building the programming.
This year there is a panel about the contributions of Black and multiracial Irish artists. What can audiences expect at this event?
STREET: This event is a collaboration with the founders of Black and Irish, a recent Irish-specific social media movement in response to the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent [Black Lives Matter] movement across the globe. … They discuss their own struggles and successes, as well as the current need to diversify Irish arts and culture. We are hugely proud and excited for people to see this. It’s a free event and runs on Jan 18 in celebration of MLK day and repeats on Jan 30.
Another panel looks at Irish artists who have contributed to the video game industry. How did this one come about?
MELLAMPHY: Well, as is often the case in life, it ain’t what you know, it’s who you know. I actually spent three years working on Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2, which was one of the highest grossing games in history. … The game features a number of Irish characters such as Penny O Brien who plays Molly O Shea, myself as Sean MacGuire, and the lead protagonist Arthur Morgan, while not Irish in the game is played by Roger Clarke who grew up in County Sligo. It was an opportunity to introduce our theatre audience to this medium, which is a massive industry and at the same time introduce fans of the game and gaming in general to 1st Irish. I’m sure people will find it interesting to learn how these games are so close to theatre itself in the making of them. It was also a great opportunity to chat amongst ourselves and share our own involvement with 1st Irish and Origin through the years.
Do you believe the theater scene will ever get back to its pre-pandemic strength?
STREET: I think it will. Theatre has survived through so many centuries for a reason, and we must continue to preserve it. I think it will take a few years for audience goers to feel as safe as they did pre-2020, but ultimately it will recover. Theatre is also incredibly important to the economy. In New York, theatre brings in more money than all the New York sports teams combined. It’s vital not just from a cultural perspectives but also from an economic one.
MELLAMPHY: I’m confident that theatre isn’t going anywhere. Storytelling is our oldest tradition. I believe the landscape may change a bit, and for the foreseeable future there will be challenges. But I also think this new online format can actually help theatre grow. We now have realised the ability to share theatrical events across the world with a click of a button. The unions, in spite of their very public and at times embarrassing tit for tat over the past nine months, have been forced to come together to allow us to work in this format. We can now reach kids in underserved communities, elderly in assisted-living facilities and a whole host of audiences previously untapped or not even considered. Nothing can replace being in the space experiencing it live, but sure the same can be said of a sporting event. And that does pretty well with no fans in the seats.
This year’s festival is particularly accessible to theatergoers in Ireland. Why was this important to you?
STREET: Well, being Irish artists ourselves, it’s only natural that we would want people in Ireland to access the content, and of course we wanted to utilize the virtual element to expand the audience. The 1st Irish has an incredibly loyal patronage in New York, and we wanted to make sure that people on the island of Ireland don’t miss out!
MELLAMPHY: The festival celebrates all writers from the island of Ireland, whether they’re living and working here or anywhere in the world. It’s such a wonderful event each year that is celebrated by so many here in New York. We really wanted to share it with the folks back home to make sure they knew we weren’t just messing around, haha. It’s also a way to say thank you to all the artists and companies who give so much of their creativity to 1st Irish that we felt we had to include the island of Ireland, and the rest of the world, too.
Ireland is a relatively small country, but there’s a great output of creativity (historically and to this day). Why do you believe this island nation has had such great theater for such a long time?
STREET: Irish people are natural storytellers. It’s in our blood and has always been a part of Irish culture and how we connect with one another. We love a good story, and humor is part of every story we tell. I also think Ireland has had quite a tragic history, so there are plenty of stories to tell! Irish writers have taken the English language, which was not our mother tongue, and elevated it into something more beautiful. That’s evident in any Irish play.
MELLAMPHY: Storytelling is at the heart of who we are as people. It’s how we communicate amongst ourselves. The amount of times you ask a question at home and it turns into a full-fledged production resplendent with quotes, jokes and anecdotes is a regular occurrence. I also believe that this is also a way that we collectively have dealt with the trauma of our past as a colonized nation. In sharing our sorrow, laughter, pain, tragedy and successes is in itself a cathartic process. In fact, seeing the artists and companies involved in this year’s festival — whether it’s a film, documentary, theatrical event or a panel discussion — gives me so much joy and hope, even in spite of the current situation.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Origin 1st Irish Festival will be virtual in 2021. Events run throughout January. Click here for more information and tickets.
