Patsy Montgomery-Hughes, recently appointed Joint Artistic Director of Bright Umbrella theatre company alongside Trevor Gill, has announced Bringing It All Back Home, a year-long celebration of playwrights born in East Belfast.
The season launches with an evening of readings from plays by established and emerging writers native to the city’s hinterland that is home to the Harland & Wolff shipyards where Titanicwas built and birthplace of luminaries including C S Lewis, Van Morrison and Stones in His Pockets and A Night in November playwright Marie Jones.
Readings in the season’s first iteration include extracts from Sadie author David Ireland’s brutal black comedy Ulster American, award-winning novelist Lucy Caldwell’s domestic drama Leaves and Caitlin Magnall-Kearns’s Orangefield, a tale of a chip shop worker dreaming of true love.
Montgomery-Hughes has enlisted an impressive cast of local talents including Dan Gordon, soon to reprise his performance as John Hume in Owen McCafferty’s Agreement at Dublin’s Gate Theatre after success in Belfast and New York, and Abigail McGibbon, most recently seen in the acclaimed revival of Martin McDonagh’s Pillowman.
Also featured are actor-playwright Caroline Curran and actor Sean Kearns, fresh from the Lyric Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Announcing the season, Montgomery-Hughes said it “will finally see our award-winning East Belfast playwrights’ work platformed on their home stage alongside our continued commitment to new writers from East Belfast.”
Bringing It All Back Home runs at The Sanctuary Theatre, Belfast from August 13–17.