When Hilary Fannin ran into a lengthy period of unemployment after 15 years as an actor, she refused to turn her back on the theatre.
In the absence of invitations to act in other people's plays, she wrote one herself, discovering in the process that writing was something she was pretty good at.
That first play, Mackerel Sky, a comedy about a dysfunctional Dublin family which she readily admits is partly autobiographical, brought her instant success and was staged by the Bush Theatre in London.
Her luck as an actor changed around the same time; after nearly two years out of work in the mid-1990s, she landed a part in the successful RTE comedy series Upwardly Mobile - she plays Pamela, the toffee-nosed one. She didn't stop writing, however, going on to collaborate in the creation of the highly successful Sleeping Around which had its first run at the Donmar Theatre in London, and she has just completed a third play, Mother's Day.
Mackerel Sky, meanwhile, will be viewed for the first time by an Irish audience next week when a Red Kettle production opens at the Garter Lane Theatre in Waterford.
Starring a host of well-known actors including Doreen Keogh, John Olohan, Ruth Hegarty, Emma McIvor, Marcella Plunkett and Michael Devanney, the play charts a day in the life of the eccentric Brazil family, struggling to stave off eviction from a shoddy, dilapidated homestead.
Hilary believes that being an experienced stage actor gives her an advantage when it comes to writing her own plays. "You're going in with a clear understanding of what works and what's possible. You can hear what people are saying; it's not just words on a page."
Mackerel Sky, directed by Jim Nolan, opens on Monday and runs for three weeks.