The Beauty Queen Of Leenane – Behind the Scenes Photos

The past few weeks have been pretty overwhelming, it’s taken me quite a while to put it all in perspective and even now I’m not sure I can sum it all up.

In such a short amount of time, so many things in my life have changed. It seemed fitting that in the midst of moving house after six long years and with so many things changing around me, that I would be involved in a production that was completely different to anything I’ve ever done before, an experience I will never forget for so many reasons.

After Devious Theatre’s production of Trainspotting, Watergate manager Ger Cody asked me if I would read a script; Martin McDonagh’s iconic ‘The Beauty Queen Of Leenane’. I had heard a little about the play but was really unfamiliar with it. I read it and loved it, I knew it was something I had to be involved in; the great script, it would be a great part to play and it was a rare chance to work with Kilkenny’s oldest theatrical institution, Watergate Productions.

Unfortunately, due to issues with getting the rights for the play, the production went on hold. Months passed by and sadly I began to think it was never going to happen. Until I got a call from Ger, the rights had been secured and the play would run in November. That’s when I first felt a bit nervous. The first script reading took place on the Watergate stage a few weeks later, with the cast assembled for the first time, sitting in a circle on the stage reading together. Myself and Clare Henriques were welcomed into the group for our debut production and from the initial reading the play began to take shape.

Weeks of rehearsals passed by, moving between the Watergate stage (when it was available) and a large room in the Heritage Council building. Slowly but surely, the scenes and movements were blocked out, lines were learned and characters began to appear. Anticipation seemed to be growing for the production, people were approaching me in the street, constantly asking about the play.

Rehearsals grew from working on single scenes to running several scenes together. Having full cast rehearsals was an amazing experience, getting to work with actors I’ve admired for years was more than a little intimidating. Going from being the eldest in a troupe to being the youngest was a strange transition to make, but the constant warmth and encouragement from Ger, Brendan, Mary and Clare throughout the rehearsals made me feel truly welcome.

The week before the show came, we made the move to night-time rehearsals on the Watergate stage, as the set began to appear around us. Each night the progress was clearly visible as props, costumes and lights were added to the mix. Scenes were run countless times, constantly tweaking and changing things. The Friday before the show opened I moved house, it was an exhausting experience in itself, and not something I’d recommend the weekend before a play opens. That night we had the tech rehearsal and on the Sunday morning we had our full dress and tech rehearsal complete with rain and fire on the stage. All we needed now was an audience.

Monday came and I was overwhelmed by “good luck” phone calls, emails, text messages and comments. I was more than a little nervous as I walked the new route to the Watergate, arriving to discover good luck cards and that the opening night was sold out!? I don’t think I can describe accurately how I felt; the Monday to Saturday run was the longest production I’ve ever done and to open to a full house on a Monday night was a truly awesome and terrifying experience at the same time. At the end, as we walked out for the curtain call that first night, the audience rose to their feet. It was an amazing feeling and every night that followed we were treated to the same reaction from the audience.

The response and feedback to the play has been so overwhelming, two weeks on and people are still approaching me every day to talk about it. It’s been great to hear the different thoughts and feelings we provoked in people and their theories on what happened in the end.

It’s been a month of changes for me, in every aspect of my life and I’ve learned so much about myself. Getting to play such a great character in such a great play, working with an awesome cast and director on a truly awesome set. I really can’t accurately describe how I feel about the whole thing but I’m very proud and grateful to have been a part of it.

I have to say a huge thanks to director Ger Cody for giving me the opportunity, for his constant patience when I wouldn’t slow down and his encouragement throughout. Having known Ger for years I always thought he was legend. I now feel like I know him a lot better and I realise that he’s even more of a legend than I first thought. He told me so many hilarious stories and I’ve learned so much from his direction.

I also have to thank my fellow cast; for so many awesome memories, for making me feel so welcome and for so many moments shared with each of them. From the whole cast referring to my piercings as “facial crockery” to the whole cast on their hands and knees searching for pieces of that crockery, that would end up dropped each night. I’m also pretty certain that the audience were quite unaware each night as they took their seats, that backstage the cast were dancing to the jigs & reels being played in the auditorium, quite a funny sight to behold with everyone in full costume & makeup. The quote of the week had to be “Up your oul hole Missus”, a phrase the cast would shout at each other regularly and after the curtain call each night we shared a group-hug.

Trying to keep a straight face on stage opposite Mary Cradock as Mag was no easy thing and every night there were moments in the final scene where myself and Claire could never make eye contact for fear of exploding into laughter. Although I didn’t get to share a scene with Brendan, we did share a dressing room and each night we had so many wonderful conversations; the man has too many funny stories and theories to sum up. I feel privileged that he shared them with me and helped me to develop my character as well as showing me how to do my own makeup for the first time.

I have to thank the Watergate Staff and the crew for their amazing work and encouragement; thanks to Pat, Maurice, Donal, Andrew, Colette and Aidan for adding the magic touches. Finally, thanks to anybody who came to see the play, the response has been truly inspiring.

Over the course of the production I took hundreds of photographs; after spending the past few days sorting and organising them I have narrowed it down to a collection of 39 photographs that capture the production from my point of view.

Taken over a 7-week period, the collection of shots ranges in style; from black & white shots from the early days of rehearsals on the Watergate stage under the dim house-lights to colourful rehearsals in the Heritage building, right up to the week of the play with full set, costumes, make-up and lighting.

Although I didn’t manage to take a photo of myself in character as Ray Dooley, I spent some time working with wireless flash triggers to produce some promo shots based on Ray’s beloved swingball set and his favoured Kimberley biscuits.

You’ll find my favourite shots from the collection on the Oss237.com homepage and you’ll see the complete collection of 39 images here on my Flickr account.

As always any feedback, comments or criticism are welcome. I’d love to hear what people think. I hope to spend the next few weeks clearing a huge build-up of photographs from the past year and moving house has presented me with a host of new locations and light sources to experiment with so I have plenty of new shots on the way.

For now please check out my brand new behind the scenes shots from the Watergate Productions ‘The Beauty Queen Of Leenane‘.

Clive Barnes – Promo Shoot

I met up with Clive Barnes (legend!) for a photo-shoot yesterday morning, with Clive looking for promo-shots to use for upcoming tours and me only too happy to get him in front of my lens.

As we’ve said on the Sound System Podcast, myself and Ken will be providing some P.R services for Clive’s upcoming tour with Australian legend Jeff Lang this July. We had initially planned to do the shoot last weekend but with the unpredictable weather we had to post-pone, giving me time to do some research and get some practice before the shoot.

Over the past few months I’ve been looking at a lot of different music promo photographers, with so many different styles and techniques to try. One of the great things about this shoot was Clive knew exactly the kind of shots he wanted and was able to give me plenty of suggestions on work to check out. The only problem being that he wanted some black and white promo shots, which firstly I’ve never done and secondly I tend to stay clear of black and white when I can.

It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I think it’s very hard to do well. A lot of photographers tend to simply shoot normally and then change an average shot to black and white to make it look a little better. It’s more attractive to the eye. But it just isn’t the same as shooting with the intention of getting good contrast black and white shots!?

My next problem being that we’d be doing the promo-shoot outside in natural lighting, yet another thing I hadn’t done. So with the shoot being delayed a week, it gave me time to get in some practice. Taking short breaks from working on my thesis, I played around with shots using natural light coming in a window to get a feel for how to go about the shots.

Yesterday morning, Clive picked me up and we drove to a quiet railway crossing just outside Bennettsbridge, hoping the rain would hold off long enough. The sky was clear and perfect for what I wanted to do; getting it to completely white out. We were both kind of surprised by how quickly we got shots we were happy with. Shooting on a 50mm (cheers Ken. I’ll give it back…someday), using the small depth of field to throw focus on the background and using the train tracks for forced perspective, I got plenty of shots. Then I just removed the colour and adjusted the levels slightly for my first series of black and white music promo shots.

It wasn’t long before we were back in the car and on our way to Woodstock in Ennistioge, for the second part of the shoot. I won’t go into the exact details of conversations in the car but I have to say that Clive has some of the coolest and funniest stories I’ve ever heard and upon arriving in Woodstock I discovered that he also has a surprising amount of knowledge about trees!?

Our first stop was in an avenue of huge monkey puzzle trees (Clive told me!), with the idea to use the background like the train tracks for forced perspective. But the sun had gone on us and the trees were just too big to get the shots we wanted. So we moved on to a small wooden cabin type structure, just in time for the sun to reappear and provide great natural light beams and awesome colours in the background. Clive took out his guitar and did his thing whilst I got out the camera and did mine.

Waiting for bursts of sunlight through the clouds I once again got shots we were happy with, very quickly. Straight away dismissing the idea of black & white for these ones, meaning I could try out another completely different style of promo shots. I could have played around for hours but the clouds said no. We made our way home and just as I got in the door, the rain came down in buckets.

I ‘d really love feedback on these new shots (comments, criticism, anything) and you can check out the full series of shots here on Clive Barnes MySpace Profile, where you will also see a long list of gig dates all over the country. I’ve seen him live three times so far and he’s awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing him again over the summer and hopefully getting him in front of my lens again.