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Irish Times Theatre Awards – Lost Lear receives three nominations!

We are delighted to share the news that Lost Lear, written by Dan Colley and produced by Riverbank Arts Centre and Mermaid Arts Centre, and supported by The Arts Council, has been nominated for THREE Irish Times Theatre Awards!

Manus Halligan has received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, along with Ross Ryder for Best Video Design. Finally Lost Lear has been nominated for Best New Play.

Having previewed in Riverbank Arts Centre in July 2022 Lost Lear premiered in September 2022 as part of Dublin Theatre Festival.

A moving and darkly comic remix of Shakespeare’s play told from the point of view of Joy, a person with dementia, who is living in an old memory of rehearsing King Lear. Joy’s delicately maintained reality is upended by the arrival of her estranged son who, being cast as Cordelia, must find a way to speak his piece from within the limited role he’s given.

Using puppetry, projection and live video effects, the audience are landed in Joy’s world as layers of her past and present, fiction and reality, overlap and distort.

Lost Lear is a thought provoking meditation on theatre, artifice and the possibility of communicating across the chasms between us.

Dan Colley is a multi-annual artist-in-residence at Riverbank Arts Centre since 2019, funded by the Arts Council and Kildare County Council, which has supported the development of Lost Lear and two other new works by Dan Colley and collaborators.

Lost Lear is co-produced by Riverbank Arts Centre and Mermaid Arts Centre and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Fishamble’s New Play Clinic.

You can vote for Lost Lear in the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards audience choice prize by clicking here.

Photos by Ste Murray

Credits

Joy Venetia Bowe
Conor Peter Daly
Liam Manus Halligan
Ensemble Clodagh O’Farrell & Em Ormonde

Written by Dan Colley, with the company, after Shakespeare
Directed by Dan Colley
Produced by Matthew Smyth

Music Composition Daniel McAuley
Set Design Andrew Clancy
Lighting Design Suzie Cummins
Costume Design Cherie White
Sound Design Kevin Gleeson
AV Design Ross Ryder
Dramaturgy Gavin Kostick
Assistant Direction Joy Nesbitt

Stage Manager Evie McGuinness
Assistant Stage Manager Sarah Purcell
Chief LX Adrian Moylan
Chief AV Laura Rainsford
Production Manager Eoin Kilkenny
Graphic Designer Sarah Moloney
Lead image Photographer Pato Cassinoni
Production Photographer Ste Murray