Love Letters to Tallaght – Freshly ground recreate letters from community
By Taylor Gleeson
Local theatre company Freshly Ground Theatre is working on a project that will show Tallaght some love.
The project, Love Letters to Tallaght, was made to celebrate Tallaght and share stories, experiences and thoughts of the village through writing.
Michelle Henry, Bronwen Barrett, Martha Knight and Vlad Gurdis
Members of the company will create a series of theatre pieces based on the letters, Ode to a Postcode that will be at the Civic Theatre in September.
There will be seven Love Letter Post Boxes placed around town. The post boxes will be around social hubs like shopping centres, pubs, community centres and take-aways.
Each will have a sign explaining the project and writing materials for the letters. The letters will be collected and brought to what the theatre company calls their ‘post office’.
Martha Knight, one of the artistic directors of Freshly Ground Theatre said “it’s basically having the community become engaged and having people look again at the art of theatre.
“The idea of the love letters and sitting down to write is supposed to be inspirational and it’s remembering something that is being let go of,” Martha said. She said that writing letters is a way to get people away from phones and electronics and back to the old ways of sitting and writing actual letters.
Martha added: “we want to connect as many stories and share as much love through something, and that thing is going to be a series of theatre installations.”
Freshly Ground Theatre’s Michelle Henry, Bronwen Barrett, Vlad Gurdis and Martha Knight
The group is hoping to have a series of outdoor performances in November, and a series of workshops to get people interested in writing.
According to Martha, Freshly Ground Theatre has been working on Love Letters to Tallaght for about three months, which they started as soon as they were done with Playhouse.
Playhouse was a part of Cruinniú Na nÓg in which Freshly Ground Theatre worked with young people from the community.
The theatre pieces in the Civic will be a part of Dublin Fringe Festival, which is coming to the Civic for the first time.
The festival runs for 16 days and Ode to a Postcode will be on from Friday, September 20 to Sunday, September 22 in the Civic’s studio space.
This year will be the 25th edition of the Dublin Fringe Festival, and it will present 80 different events throughout Dublin.
Love Letters to Tallaght is supported by The Arts Council, South Dublin County Council Arts Office and Creative Ireland South.
