Showcase sessions is a success for theatre and drama group

A LOCAL community theatre and drama group recently held a hugely successful production.

Basement Productions, who are based in Ballyfermot, staged ‘Showcase Sessions: 15 Minutes of Fame’ as part of the Ballyfermot Cherry Orchard Arts festival.

Emma Faye, who has been with Basement since 2019, came up with the idea to encourage local storytellers to give writing a go, with Basement Productions acting as a platform to give people an opportunity to showcase their work without having to stage it themselves.

“The idea was tried last year for the first time to see how it would come together and it was decided to run it again as the audience feedback was fantastic – people felt it was something new and quite different,” said Emma.

The concept of the show is that Basement invite people to write a short drama piece with a 15-minute run time approximately.

“The timeframe for submissions is approximately 8 weeks.

“Once received, they are all read by a group of our actors and director, Billy Mangan, who decide which six submissions will work best onstage and they are set up to run back to-back as a full show, hence giving the writers their ‘15 Minutes of Fame’,” said Emma.

“Because they are all different and unconnected pieces, the audience is kept constantly guessing because they really have no idea what is going to happen next!” added Emma.

“This year, the line-up was mostly comedy items with hilarious takes on what some people get up to in the afterlife, how hearing aids can affect one’s love life, [and] banshees looking for a positive slant on their career choices! All very tongue in cheek,” said Emma.

“The cast took to the stage, with many members appearing in more than one piece so there were costume changes galore backstage as well as lots of belly laughs from the audience,” said Emma.

Emma wrote ‘Purgatory II: The Road to Hell’ and also acted in it with Sal Dunne, John Carabini and Sean Dervan.

Next up was ‘Heard Mentality’ by Allison Fradkin with Neeve Batacan, Destiny Coker and Gizmo Heavey.

Third was ‘The Good Banshee’ by Brendan Shanahan who also provided musical accompaniments on the evening to this and various other pieces and featured John Carabini, Brenda Mitchell, Dylan O’Brien and Natasha Lynch.

“After a short break, they were back with ‘The End’ by Robert Murphy with David Spain and Suzanne Reid setting the tone from the start for this very interesting take on personal choices!” said Emma.

The audience was then transported back to 1930’s Dublin with a scene from Dylan Henvey’s ‘Animals’ and the night was rounded off with a very sarcastic funeral scene from Basement’s long time regular writer, Derek Murphy, as an extract from his play, ‘The Burke Sisters’.

“All this was supported by Basement’s great crew of Chris McMahon, Alex Raven, Matt Flynn, Rachel Kavanagh and Theresa McGouran,” said Emma.

Huge applause was received from a full house at the end with many standing to show their appreciation.

“‘15 Minutes of Fame’ was presented for one night only to the community free of charge as part of the Ballyfermot Cherry Orchard Arts Festival but feedback from the audience was that it should definitely have a run of more than one night and we should be charging for it – so watch this space!” quipped Emma.