On the Town: Actors heard their own lines read back to them at the launch of One: Healing With Theatre, in Dublin's Temple Bar this week. This 14-hour film, performance and book project by Pan Pan Theatre Company features interviews with 100 actors.
"When I was five, people started laughing at me. And then I knew," said actor Tom Hickey, who is currently appearing in Tom Mac Intyre's What Happened Bridgie Cleary at the Peacock. "I was at a neighbour's house and they were all looking down at me and laughing at me . . . I believe that all good theatre has a transforming aspect to it."
Actors are "not often acknowledged as having years of performing experience", said Gavin Quinn, the director of the project. "Actors are an important part of the living cultural heritage." Theatre "lives on" in their memories.
The film, which records some of these memories, will be shown in Temple Bar's Meeting House Square as part of the Diversions festival later this summer, as well as in a series of screenings at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in September and in a combination of screenings and live performances by the actors at the Warehouse in the Digital Hub, Dublin 8.
Pan Pan has "a long and creditable track record in striving to achieve their mission" of always being idiosyncratic, of finding the individual step, said Mary Cloake, director of the Arts Council, when she launched the project, which involved filming all 100 actors in their homes.
Lilliput Press will be publishing a limited edition of a book to commemorate the project.
Among the actors who came to the launch were Geraldine Plunkett, Ned Dennehy, Ruth Negga, Gina Moxley, Karl Shiels, Emma McIvor (with her baby daughter, Iris Fletcher), Dylan Tighe and Deirdre Molloy.
Pianist Dearbhla Collins was there with her two-year old son, Ben David Power. Collins will be officiating at tomorrow's musical garden party in Kilruddery House, Bray, Co Wicklow, which she has organised in support of the upcoming Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition.
For more information, go to www.panpantheatre.com or phone 01-6334493