The LASTA Festival returns for its fourth year this month, bringing innovative theatre and performance to stages across Ireland with a distinctive youth-led vision.
The national arts festival, which champions work made for and by young people, places emerging artists and programmers at the helm.
In Limerick, this year’s curators—Eoin Gilmartin, a Tipperary performer and theatre maker, and Matthew O’Rourke, a Limerick-based writer and performer—were selected through a competitive open call to programme events at Belltable and Lime Tree Theatre.
“There was a call out in June last year, and so I said I’d just give it a go, because I’ve been doing the performance side of theatre for so long and I was interested in the production side,” O’Rourke recalls. “And what better way than to get involved and to try and programme something with my local theatre.”
Gilmartin adds: “We were interested in a young audience coming to see the show, so that was the main thing we looked at. And we did try, where possible, to also give young performers the opportunity to get their name out there.”
Line-up
The Limerick programme opens on October 15 with Boyfriends from LemonSoap Productions, a witty exploration of modern “situationships” written by Ultan Pringle.
“We wanted to put a big focus on LGBT and queer representation in the festival,” says Gilmartin. “We know from experience that there are a lot of queer people in the city who are interested in theatre and there’s not a lot of art that reflects that.
“This story really caught our interest, and also we feel the message will really connect with a lot of people in the city.”
Isolde Fenton’s darkly comic In A Bad Way follows on October 18 tackling hypochondria and self-diagnosis with sharp humour.
On 23 October 23, Stretched On Your Grave: A Tribute to Sinéad O’Connor offers an evening of readings and music celebrating the late artist, performed by Deirdre and David Clare (Mary Immaculate College’s Drama Department) alongside local performers.
“It’s mostly a music show, but it’s also interspersed with readings from her own diaries,” explains Gilmartin.
Threedumb Theatre’s One Man Poe, a gothic tour through Edgar Allan Poe’s works performed by Stephen Smith, takes the stage on October 24.
The programme concludes on October 25 with Boxing Day: A Translation, a new adaptation by curator Matthew O’Rourke of William Keohane’s work exploring themes of identity, audience and human connection.
“William asked me last year if I would do an adaptation of Boxing Day with him but that fell through because of timing issues,” O’Rourke remembers.
“So this year. He was like, well, this could be your shot. Do you want to perform it instead? So I said absolutely.”
The piece comprises 52 poems, one for each week of the year.
“It’s mainly about the passage of time and how much you change over time, how much your perception of everything changes,” says O’Rourke. “And it’s also just about finding yourself and being afraid and learning to embrace fear.”
“We called it a translation because it is going to be very different from how he performed it. William has always done it as just a poetry performance, whereas my version is going to be more of a theatre piece, with more movement and music.”
Questioning the relationship between speaker and audience Boxing Day offers a commanding, urgent story about existing in the world as a trans person.
The future
Both curators see their involvement in LASTA as part of broader ambitions in the arts. O’Rourke, a fourth-year Drama and English student at Mary Immaculate College, says: “Theatre is definitely my long-term goal. I’m so delighted that I got to be part of this. I’m used to being on stage and I’ve done a bit of backstage work, but this is full of the production side of things, which is brilliant to have experienced.”
Gilmartin, currently studying Product Design at the University of Limerick, is passionate about broadening perceptions of theatre careers.
“My initiative is to try and make sure that we’re showing people the opportunities in theatre outside of just being an actor. You have people backstage doing sets and lights, which I really enjoy.”
Gilmartin is already working to unite his dual interests. His final year project explores performance technology, whilst another project focuses on sustainability, bringing communities together to share resources and make theatre more financially affordable for amateur organisations.
All performances take place at 8pm at Belltable. Further details are available at https://limetreebelltable.ie/